Can one explain the power of global capitalism without attributing to capital a logic and coherence it does not have? Can one account for the powers of techno-science in terms that do not merely reproduce its own understanding of the world?
Rule of Experts examines these questions through a series of interrelated essays focused on Egypt in the twentieth century. These explore the way malaria, sugar cane, war, and nationalism interacted to produce the techno-politics of the modern Egyptian state; the forms of debt, discipline, and violence that founded the institution of private property; the methods of measurement, circulation, and exchange that produced the novel idea of a national "economy," yet made its accurate representation impossible; the stereotypes and plagiarisms that created the scholarly image of the Egyptian peasant; and the interaction of social logics, horticultural imperatives, powers of desire, and political forces that turned programs of economic reform in unanticipated directions.
Mitchell is a widely known political theorist and one of the most innovative writers on the Middle East. He provides a rich examination of the forms of reason, power, and expertise that characterize contemporary politics. Together, these intellectually provocative essays will challenge a broad spectrum of readers to think harder, more critically, and more politically about history, power, and theory.

How do we place value on goods - and, importantly, why? Valuation and pricing are core issues in the market economy, but understanding of these concepts and their interrelation is weak. In response, The Worth of Goods takes a sociological approach to the perennial but timely question of what makes a product valuable. Structured in three parts, it first examines value in the broader sense - moral values and how they are formed, and the relations between economic and non-economic values - discussing such matters as the value of an oil spill, the price of a scientific paper, value in ethical consumption, and imaginative value. The second part discusses the issues surrounding valuation in aesthetic markets, specifically wine, fashion models, art, and the creative industries. The third part analyzes valuation in financial markets - credit rating agencies, stock exchange markets, and industrial production. This pioneering volume brings together leading social scientists to provide a range of theoretical tools and case studies for understanding price and the creation of value in markets within social and cultural contexts and preconditions. It is an important source for scholars in economics, sociology, anthropology, and political science interested in how markets work, and how value is established.

How do companies sell life insurance in a country where death is a taboo subject? In Marketing Death, Cheris S.C. Chan explores both how and why the life insurance industry has managed to emerge in China, a country with an entrenched cultural stigma against the very topic of death. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and engaging with current scholarship, Chan explores the processes and micro-politics by which foreign and domestic companies have negotiated local cultural resistance and created a market in spite of it. In doing so, she asks larger questions about how different societies view and value life and death, what is meant by "cultural values," how they interact with a set of fragmented cultural tools to compellingly organize individuals' practical daily lives, and how the market is influenced by them. Chan tells a story not just of the emergence of the Chinese life insurance industry, but of the dynamic relationships between culture and markets, local norms and foreign influences in one of the world's fastest-growing economies.
Marketing Death is the first book to offer a sociological analysis of the emergence of a life insurance market outside of a European or American context. Through in-depth study of the expansion of an industry whose unique "product" - gambling on one's own sudden death - has always met with a measure of resistance, but never more so than in China, Chan provides a new lens for understanding how modern capitalist enterprises are diffused to regions with disparate cultural traditions.

A dollar is a dollar - or so most of us believe. Indeed, it is part of the ideology of our time that money is a single, impersonal instrument that impoverishes social life by reducing social relations to cold, hard cash. Arguing against this conventional wisdom, Viviana Zelizer, a distinguished social scientist and prize-winning author, shows how people have invented their own forms of currency, earmarking money in ways that baffle market theorists, incorporating funds into webs of friendship and family relations, and otherwise varying the process by which spending and saving takes place.

The attempt to reduce the role of the state in the market through tax cuts, decreases in social spending, deregulation, and privatization—“neoliberalism”—took root in the United States under Ronald Reagan and in Britain under Margaret Thatcher. But why did neoliberal policies gain such prominence in these two countries and not in similarly industrialized Western countries such as France and Germany?
In The Politics of Free Markets, a comparative-historical analysis of the development of neoliberal policies in these four countries,Monica Prasad argues that neoliberalism was made possible in the United States and Britain not because the Left in these countries was too weak, but because it was in some respects too strong. At the time of the oil crisis in the 1970s, American and British tax policies were more punitive to business and the wealthy than the tax policies of France and West Germany; American and British industrial policies were more adversarial to business in key domains; and while the British welfare state was the most redistributive of the four, the French welfare state was the least redistributive. Prasad shows that these adversarial structures in the United States and Britain created opportunities for politicians to find and mobilize dissatisfaction with the status quo, while the more progrowth policies of France and West Germany prevented politicians of the Right from anchoring neoliberalism in electoral dissatisfaction.

The aftershocks of the economic crisis that began in 2008 still rock the world, and have been followed by a crisis in democratic governance. The gravity of the situation is matched by a general paucity of understanding as to precisely what is happening and how it started.
In this new edition of a highly acclaimed book, Wolfgang Streeck revisits his recent arguments in the light of Brexit and the continued crisis of the EU. These developments are only the latest events in the long neoliberal transformation of postwar capitalism that began in the 1970s, a process that turned states away from tax toward debt as a source of revenue, and from that point into the ‘consolidation state’ of today. Central to this analysis is the changing relationship between capitalism and democracy—in Europe and elsewhere—and the advancing immunization of the former against the latter.

Just one generation ago, lawyers dominated Mexico's political elite, and Mexican economists were a relatively powerless group of mostly leftist nationalists. Today, in contrast, the country is famous, or perhaps infamous, for being run by American-trained neoclassical economists. In 1993, the "Economist" suggested that Mexico had the most economically literate government in the world - a trend that has continued since Mexico's transition to multi-party democracy. To the accompanying fanfare of U.S. politicians and foreign investors, these technocrats embarked on the ambitious program of privatization, deregulation, budget-cutting, and opening to free trade - all in keeping with the prescriptions of mainstream American economics.This book chronicles the evolution of economic expertise in Mexico over the course of the twentieth century, showing how internationally credentialed experts came to set the agenda for the Mexican economics profession and to dominate Mexican economic policymaking. It also reveals how the familiar language of Mexico's new experts overlays a professional structure that is still alien to most American economists. Sarah Babb mines diverse sources - including Mexican undergraduate theses, historical documents, and personal interviews - to address issues relevant not only to Latin American studies, but also to the sociology of professions, political sociology, economic sociology, and neoinstitutionalist sociology. She demonstrates with skill how peculiarly national circumstances shape what economic experts think and do. At the same time, Babb shows how globalization can erode national systems of economic expertise in developing countries, creating a new class of 'global experts.'

An estimated 45 million adults in the U.S. lack a credit score at time when credit invisibility can reduce one’s ability to rent a home, find employment, or secure a mortgage or loan. As a result, individuals without credit—who are disproportionately African American and Latino—often lead separate and unequal financial lives. Yet, as sociologists and public policy experts Frederick Wherry, Kristin Seefeldt, and Anthony Alvarez argue, many people who are not recognized within the financial system engage in behaviors that indicate their credit worthiness. How might institutions acknowledge these practices and help these people emerge from the financial shadows? In Credit Where It’s Due, the authors evaluate an innovative model of credit-building and advocate for a new understanding of financial citizenship, or participation in a financial system that fosters social belonging, dignity, and respect.
Wherry, Seefeldt, and Alvarez tell the story of the Mission Asset Fund, a San Francisco-based organization that assists mostly low- and moderate-income people of color with building credit. The Mission Asset Fund facilitates zero-interest lending circles, which have been practiced by generations of immigrants, but have gone largely unrecognized by mainstream financial institutions. Participants decide how the circles are run and how they will use their loans, and the organization reports their clients’ lending activity to credit bureaus. As the authors show, this system not only helps clients build credit, but also allows them to manage debt with dignity, have some say in the creation of financial products, and reaffirm their sense of social membership. The authors delve into the history of racial wealth inequality in the U.S. to show that for many black and Latino households, credit invisibility is not simply a matter of individual choices or inadequate financial education. Rather, financial marginalization is the result of historical policies that enabled predatory lending, discriminatory banking and housing practices, and the rollback of regulatory protections for first-time homeowners.
To rectify these inequalities, the authors propose common sense regulations to protect consumers from abuse alongside new initiatives that provide seed capital for every child, create affordable short-term loans, and ensure that financial institutions treat low- and moderate-income clients with equal respect. By situating the successes of the Mission Asset Fund in the larger history of credit and debt, Credit Where It’s Due shows how to prioritize financial citizenship for all.

In this classic work of economic history and social theory, Karl Polanyi analyzes the economic and social changes brought about by the "great transformation" of the Industrial Revolution. His analysis explains not only the deficiencies of the self-regulating market, but the potentially dire social consequences of untempered market capitalism. New introductory material reveals the renewed importance of Polanyi's seminal analysis in an era of globalization and free trade.

20世纪思想巨匠卡尔·波兰尼代表作
台湾中研院黄树民教授经典译本修订版
一部“历久弥坚”的著作
在这部公认的伟大著作中，波兰尼的主要关切是：造成19世纪西方文明衰败的起因。波兰尼从社会经济史的角度勾勒了资本主义世界经济的要求与民族国家内部社会福利的追求这两者之间的冲突。换言之，他以自由经济制度与社会制度之间的冲突过程来解释自律性市场社会的建立及其衰败，亦即19世纪西方文明的崩溃。这一主题是波兰尼一生思想的总结。
欧洲文明所经历的转变，今日看来就如同当代世界各地发展中国家所面临的转变一样，以至于波兰尼的这本书几乎就像是在评论当代议题。
——约瑟夫·斯蒂格利茨（Joseph E. Stiglitz）
20世纪的经典之作。
——查尔斯·金德尔伯格（Charles P. Kindleberger）

Much orthodox economic theory is based on assumptions which are treated as self-evident: supply and demand are regarded as independent entities, the individual is assumed to be a rational agent who knows his interests and how to make decisions corresponding to them, and so on. But one has only to examine an economic transaction closely, as Pierre Bourdieu does here for the buying and selling of houses, to see that these abstract assumptions cannot explain what happens in reality.As Bourdieu shows, the market is constructed by the state, which can decide, for example, whether to promote private housing or collective provision. And the individuals involved in the transaction are immersed in symbolic constructions which constitute, in a strong sense, the value of houses, neighbourhoods and towns.The abstract and illusory nature of the assumptions of orthodox economic theory has been criticised by some economists, but Bourdieu argues that we must go further. Supply, demand, the market and even the buyer and seller are products of a process of social construction, and so-called 'economic' processes can be adequately described only by calling on sociological methods. Instead of seeing the two disciplines in antagonistic terms, it is time to recognize that sociology and economics are in fact part of a single discipline, the object of which is the analysis of social facts, of which economic transactions are in the end merely one aspect.This brilliant study by the most original sociologist of post-war France will be essential reading for students and scholars of sociology, economics, anthropology and related disciplines.

《社会与经济》是新经济社会学奠基人格兰诺维特匠心独具的扛鼎之作，本书第一次全面地阐述了格兰诺维特有关社会与经济相互交织多种方式的观点。
在本书中，格兰诺维特写道，经济并不是一个区隔于其他人类行为的领域。它深深地嵌入于社会关系中，并且与其他领域一样遭受着情感和观念的冲击，经受着诸如宗教、科技、政治或法律的限制。尽管某些行为能够在传统经济学的意义上解释为“人们朝着良好界定的目的而理性地行事”；大部分人类行为难以适用于这一简单框架。行为者有时因对社会规范正当性的执着信念而遵循之，有时则是在无意识中就遵循了它们。人们还会在没有明显理由的情况下信任别人。不同个人之间针对彼此的权力运用，能对经济绩效产生重要的影响，哪怕是这种权力有着非经济性的来源。
尽管人们依赖于社会规范、文化、信任及权力来解决问题，但这些因素所提供的指导作用通常是模糊而复杂的。在本书中，格兰诺维特考察了问题解决者如何从多重原则中收集实用的解决方案以应对燃眉之急。他遍览群书，融会贯通心理学、社会网研究及长期历史和政治分析的主张，提出了灵活运用并综合这些视角的方法。格兰诺维特所持观点的底蕴是，超越诸如行动/结构这样简单的二元论框架，迈向更为复杂而微妙的分析，以欣赏社会和经济生活的精微之处与活力之源。

Platform Capitalism is a high definition snapshot of the current political economic situation than manages to get a lot of detail into a tight frame. It offers a convincing image of the current stage of capitalist development as a series of variations on the theme of the platform as a means of consolidating or seizing a kind of monopoly leverage over not only distribution but also production. Srnicek gives good reasons for thinking the platform moment in capital accumulation might be less all-conquering than it looks?
McKenzie Wark, author of Telethesia: Communication, Culture and Class

简介：
作者通过对马来西亚农民反抗的日常形式——偷懒、装糊涂、开小差、假装顺从、偷盗、装傻卖呆、诽谤、纵火、暗中破坏等的探究,揭示出农民与榨取他们的劳动、食物、税收、租金和利益者之间的持续不断的斗争的社会学根源。作者认为,农民利用心照不宣的理解和非正式的网络,以低姿态的反抗技术进行自卫性的消耗战,用坚定强韧的努力对抗无法抗拒的不平等,以避免公开反抗的集体风险。
导读：
一部可能成为经典的令人难忘之作。
——《泰晤士报文学副刊》
任何想要了解东南亚农民社会的人都不能错过此书。
——《亚洲研究杂志》
一部卓越的著作……斯科特以其出色的工作展示了人种学报告不能也无法呈现的农民反抗外来侵犯的“全貌”……是对反抗霸权的日常形式的精彩理论和经验阐释。
——爱德华·W.萨义德
前言：
前 言
任何研究领域的局限性在与其相关研究的共有定义中最能突显出来。大量的关于农民的近期研究——包括我本人的和其他人的——都关注反抗与革命的问题。平心而论,除了关于亲属关系、仪式、耕作和语言方面一贯的标准民族志描述之外,更多的关注集中于有组织的、大规模的抗议运动,因为它们尽管只是昙花一现,却显然对国家造成了威胁。我可以想到对此类运动重要性的共有理解得以盛行的原因在于一系列相互强化的因素。对左派而言,对农民起义的过度关注显然受到越战和现在已经开始消退的左翼学术界对民族解放战争的迷恋的刺激。绝对以国家利益为中心的历史记录和档案鼓励了这种迷恋,它们从不提及农民,除非农民的行动对国家构成威胁。另一方面,农民只是作为征召、粮食生产、税收等方面的匿名“贡献者”出现在统计数字中。这种视角下的每项研究强调了不同的侧面。一些研究只能是强调外来者——预言家、激进知识分子、政党——在动员通常懒散、无组织的农民的过程中的角色。另一些研究关注的只是西方社会科学家最为熟悉那些运动——那些拥有名称、旗帜、组织机构和正式领导阶层的运动。还有一些研究,只是在精确考察那些可能在国家层面推动大规模的、结构性变迁的运动方面有所贡献。
我认为,这种视角所忽视的是这样一个简单的事实:贯穿于大部分历史过程的大多数从属阶级极少能从事公开的、有组织的政治行动,那对他们来说过于奢侈。换言之,这类运动即使不是自取灭亡,也是过于危险的。即使当选择存在时,同一目标能否用不同的策略来实现也是不清楚的。毕竟,大多数从属阶级对改变宏大的国家结构和法律缺乏兴趣,他们更关注的是霍布斯鲍姆所称的“使制度的不利……降至最低”。正式的、组织化的政治活动,即使是秘密的和革命性的,也是典型地为中产阶级和知识分子所拥有;在这一领域寻找农民政治大半会徒劳无功。并非偶然,这也是走向结论的第一步:农民阶级在政治上是无效的,除非他们被外来者组织和领导。
就其真正发生时的重要性而言,农民叛乱是相当稀少的——更不用说农民革命了。它们大多被轻而易举地粉碎,即使非常罕见地成功了,令人悲哀的是其达到的结果也很少是农民真正想要的。无论是哪种革命的成功——我并不想否认这些成果——通常都会导致一个更大的更具强制力的国家机器,它比其前任更有效地压榨农民以养肥自己。
鉴于上述原因,对我而言更为重要的是去理解可以称为农民反抗的“日常”形式的斗争——农民与试图从他们身上榨取劳动、食物、税收、租金和利益的那些人之间平淡无奇却持续不断的斗争。此类斗争的大多数形式避免了公开的集体反抗的风险。在此我能想到的这些相对的弱势群体的日常武器有:偷懒、装糊涂、开小差、假装顺从、偷盗、装傻卖呆、诽谤、纵火、暗中破坏等等。这些布莱希特式——或帅克式——的阶级斗争形式有其共同特点。它们几乎不需要协调或计划,它们利用心照不宣的理解和非正式的网络,通常表现为一种个体的自助形式,它们避免直接地、象征性地与权威对抗。了解这些平凡的反抗形式就是理解农民长期以来为保护自己的利益对抗或保守或进步的秩序所作的大多数努力。我猜想长期以来正是这类反抗最有意义和最有成效。因而,研究封建主义的历史学家布洛赫指出,相对于“农村社区顽强进行的坚韧的、沉默的斗争”而言,伟大的千年运动也只是“昙花一现”;这类斗争旨在避免对他们的生产剩余的索要和维护他们对生产资料——如耕地、林场、牧场等的所有权。这一观点肯定也适用于对新大陆奴隶制的研究。对奴隶与其主人关系的分析不能仅仅去寻找纳特·特纳或约翰·布朗式罕见的、英雄主义的、注定失败的举动,而必须着眼于围绕工作、食物、自主权、仪式的持续不断的琐碎的冲突——即反抗的日常形式。在第三世界,农民很少会在税收、耕作模式、发展政策或繁琐的新法律等问题上去冒险与当局直接对抗;他们更可能通过不合作、偷懒和欺骗去蚕食这些政策。他们宁愿一点一点地挤占土地而不是直接侵占土地;他们选择开小差而不是公开发动兵变,他们宁可小偷小摸也不去抢公共的或私人的粮仓。而一旦农民不再使用这些策略而是采取堂吉诃德式的行动,这通常是大规模铤而走险的信号。
这种低姿态的反抗技术与农民的社会结构非常适合——农民阶级分散在农村中,缺乏正式的组织,最适合于大范围的游击式的自卫性的消耗战。他们的行动拖沓和逃跑等个体行动被古老的民众反抗文化所强化,成千上万地累积起来,最终会使得在首都的那些自以为是的官员所构想的政策完全无法推行。反抗的日常形式不需要名目。但是,就像成百上千万的珊瑚虫形成的珊瑚礁一样,大量的农民反抗与不合作行动造就了他们特有的政治和经济的暗礁。在很大程度上,农民以这种方式表明了其政治参与感。打个比方说,当国家的航船搁浅于这些暗礁时,人们通常只注意船只失事本身,而没有看到正是这些微不足道的行动的大量聚集才使失事成为可能。仅此而言,理解这些无声的匿名的农民行动的颠覆性就是十分重要的。
为了这样一个目标,我在马来西亚的一个村庄里度过了两年(1978—1980)时间。这个村庄被我称为塞达卡,这并不是它的真名。它是吉打州水稻主产区一个以种植水稻为主的小村落(有70户人家),该村在1972年开始引入双耕。与其他许多“绿色革命”一样,它使得富人更为富有,而穷人仍然贫穷甚至变得更穷。1976年大型联合收割机的引进或许更是致命的一击,它使得小土地所有者和无地劳动者失去了三分之二挣工资的机会。在这两年当中,我设法收集了大量的相关资料。我在关注反抗实践本身的同时也关注村庄内的意识形态斗争——它为反抗写就了脚本。在本书中,我试图讨论反抗和阶级斗争的重大主题,以及赋予这些主题以实践和理论意义的意识形态支配问题。
在塞达卡,贫富之间的斗争不仅是关于工作、财产权、粮食和金钱的斗争,它也是关于占有象征符号的斗争,是有关过去和现在如何被理解和被分类的斗争,是确认理由、评价过失的斗争,也是赋予地方历史党派意义的斗争性努力。这一斗争的细节并不光彩,通常包括背后诽谤、流言蜚语、人身攻击、给人起绰号、肢体语言和无声的蔑视等,这些大部分都局限在村庄生活的“后台”。而在公共生活中——亦即在负载权力的情境中——经过精心算计的遵从是普遍和经常的状态。阶级冲突的这一方面的显著特征是它在多大程度上需要一个共享的世界观。例如,如果没有关于什么是越轨、什么是可耻和无礼的共同标准,那么任何流言蜚语和人身攻击就是毫无意义的。在一定意义上,争论的强烈程度基于这样的事实:人们所主张的共享价值观遭到背离。人们争论的不是价值观本身,而是这些价值观适用的事实:谁富、谁穷、何以致富、何以贫穷、谁吝啬、谁逃避工作等。这些斗争除了可以视做动员社会舆论的约束性力量以外,还可视为这一小共同体中穷人为抗拒他们所遭受的经济和仪式上的边缘化并坚持最低限度的公民的文化尊严而进行的努力。这种视角含蓄地肯定了“以意义为中心”的阶级关系分析的价值。在本书最后一章,我将就更广泛的意识形态支配和霸权问题进行说明和探讨。
在塞达卡度过的14个月中,我有时兴高采烈,有时万分沮丧,有时手足无措,有时辛苦乏味,这些是每个人类学家都能够体会到的。由于我并非正式的人类学家,因而所有这些经验对我来说都是全新的。如果没有贝利给予我的实用的田野研究讲座,我将不知如何去做。即使是在这些明智的建议的指引下,我仍然对人类学家从早上起床到晚上入睡一直处于工作状态的基本事实缺乏准备。在最初的几个月里,我去室外活动大半没有目的而是为了自己独处。我发现需要保持一种审慎的中立——亦即保持缄默,这是明智的,但同时也是巨大的心理负担。随着我自己的“隐藏的文本”(参见第七章)的增多,我首次认识到琼·杜韦格纳德的评论的正确性:“在多数情况下,村庄会向外来研究者做出让步,而研究者通常求助于隐藏。”我同样发现邻居们总是原谅我难免犯的错误,在每一点上容忍我的好奇心,他们对我的不适当行为并不在意,并允许我在他们身边工作。他们有着既嘲笑我同时又与我友好相处的非凡能力,他们具备划分界限的尊严和勇气,他们善于社交,经常在非收获季节就感兴趣的话题与我彻夜长谈。他们的友善表明,相对于我适应他们来说,他们更好地适应了我。和他们在一起的时光对我的生活和工作的意义是言辞的感谢不足以表达的。
尽管我努力删减原稿,但它依然很长。主要原因在于许多特定故事的讲述对于揭示阶级关系的结构和实践是绝对重要的。既然每个故事都至少有两面,因而有必要考虑社会冲突所产生的“罗生门效应”的存在。努力讲述这些故事的另外一个原因在于,要将一种贴近底层的阶级关系的研究提升到一个相当的高度。我认为这些更为宏观的思考需要有血有肉的详细实例来呈现本质。因而,一个实例不仅是将一般概括具体化的最成功途径,而且它具有比归纳出的原则更为丰富和复杂的优势。
在马来语很难直译的地方,或马来语表达本身很有意思的地方,我都将其加在正文或脚注里。除了对那些外来者所做的正式演讲,我从不使用磁带录音机进行记录。我的工作是依靠谈话时片断的笔记或事后马上进行追记来完成的。由于许多句子中只有一些更容易记住的片断可以忆起,结果使得我所记录的马来语有某种类似电报的性质。刚到时,我听不懂吉打州农村的方言,相当多的村民用他们在市场上所用的更简单的马来语对我说话。
我觉得,本书的写作还有一个特殊缘由。与其他乡村研究相比,它更多是研究对象的产物。在我开始研究时,我的想法是展开我的分析,将研究写出来,并准备一个关于我的发现的简短的口头版本,然后回到村民中去收集他们对此的反应、意见和批评。这些反应将收集在最后一章——作为“村民的回应”的部分,或者,如果你愿意,也可以将其视为那些应该知晓本书内容的人所做的“书评”。事实上,在塞达卡的最后两个月中,我的确花了更多的时间用于从大多数村民中收集这些意见。在各种各样的评论中——这些评论通常反映了评论者的阶级立场——充满着一系列针对我所忽视问题的富于洞见的批评、修正和建议。所有这些在改变原有分析的同时也提出了一个问题。我是否应该将我较早的愚钝的分析交给读者而只在最后才呈现村民提出的见解呢?这是我最初的想法,而当我动笔时,我发现把我现在已经知道的当做不知道来写是不可能的,于是我逐步把这些洞见融入到我自己的分析中。其结果就是去理解在何种程度上塞达卡的村民既是形成分析的原因,也是研究的原始素材,并因此使得那些复杂的谈话更像是一种独白。
最后,我要强调这是一个非常自觉的地方阶级关系的研究。这意味着农民—国家关系显然存在大量反抗,会明显缺席,除非它们影响了地方的阶级关系。这也意味着那些在任何政治危机中都相当重要的族群冲突、宗教运动或抗议也基本上没有被涉及。本书也不去分析这里所考察的细微阶级关系的经济起源,这些源头不难一直追溯到纽约和东京的董事会议上。这还意味着处于省或国家层面的正式的政党政治也将被忽略。从一个角度看,所有这些省略都很可惜。但从另一个角度看,这里的努力是要表明地方阶级关系是多么重要、多么丰富和复杂,还表明不以国家、正式组织、公开抗议、民族问题为中心的分析视角将给我们带来的潜在发现。
下面这些过于冗长的谢辞意在表明为了进行研究我必须学习的许多东西,同时也表明那些教导我的人的耐心和大度。对于塞达卡的那些家庭——出于显而易见的原因他们的名字被隐去——我所欠甚多,这笔债之所以沉重,原因在于我所写的内容让不只一个人感到他们的友好被滥用了。当然,对一个专业的外来者而言,那是一种人性的困境,而我只能期待他们将会发现我是以诚实的努力和自己有限的学识来公正地对待我的所见所闻的。
我的接待单位是位于槟榔屿州的马来西亚理科大学(Universiti Sains Malaysia)比较社会科学院。作为客人或学者,我是非常幸运的。我要特别感谢学院的Mansor Marican,Chandra Muzaffar,Mohd Shadli Abdullah,Cheah Boon Kheng,Khoo Kay Jin,Colin Abraham及副校长兼院长Kamal Salih和院长助理Amir Hussin Baharuddin,感谢他们的建议和友善。Nafisah bte. Mohamed作为吉打州方言的特别辅导老师,帮助我为田野工作进行准备。马来西亚理科大学政策研究中心对吉打州的穆达工程和与之相关的农业政策进行了许多出色的研究。该中心的Lim Teck Ghee 和David Gibbons不仅帮助我制订研究计划,而且还成为我弥足珍贵的朋友和批评者,他们的功劳在书中随处可见——即使在我决定自行其是的时候。我还要感谢Sukur Kasim,Harun Din,Ikmal Said,George Elliston,当然还有中心主任K. J. Ratnam。位于亚罗士打附近Teluk Chengai的穆达地区农业发展局总部的官员们总是非常慷慨地贡献他们的时间、他们的统计数据,尤其是他们的丰富经验。任何发展项目中要找到这样一些有知识、严格而坦率的官员都不是件容易的事。Affifuddin Haji Omar和S. Jegatheesan,以及时任穆达地区农业发展局总经理的Datuk Tamin Yeop,都给予了很多帮助。
与我的研究路径互有交叉、对马来西亚乡村社会进行研究并著述的“无形学院”的成员们,对于我的理解和分析贡献良多。由于他们人数众多,我无疑会有所遗漏。他们中的一些人或许宁愿不被提及,而我还是必须提到这样一些名字,他们是Syed Husin Ali,Wan Zawawi Ibrahim,Shaharil Talib,Jomo Sundaram,Wan Hashim,Rosemary Barnard,Aihwa Ong,Shamsul Amri Baharuddin,Diana Wong,Donald Nonini,William Roff,Judith 以及 Shuichi Nagata,Lim Mah Hui,Marie*9鄄André Couillard,Rodelfe de Koninck,Lorraine Corner和Akira Takahashi。两位来耶鲁做毕业论文的马来西亚理科大学的教师Mansor Haji Othman和S. Ahmad Hussein给我提出了重要的建议和批评。最后,我要特别感谢东京发展经济学研究所的健三掘井的慷慨,他在1968年对塞达卡的土地所有制进行了研究并得出可以利用的结果,如此我才能确定十年间的变化究竟意味着什么。
最后的手稿在同事们细致的批评指正下有了很大改观。我忍痛割爱,不再争论那些他们认为荒谬或无关紧要——或两者兼有——的论题,同时增加了他们认为必要的历史性和分析性的内容。即使我拒绝他们的看法,我也总是尽量通过加强或改变我的立场来减少直接的攻击。然而,到此为止吧。如果他们一直完全坚持他们的看法,我还愿意继续修改,并努力调整他们无意造成的混乱。我迫不及待地要回报他们的厚爱。感谢Ben Anderson,Michael Adas,Clive Kessler,Sam Popkin(对,就是他),Mansor Haji Othman,Lim Teck Ghee,David Gibbons,Georg Elwert,Edward Friedman,Frances Fox Piven,Jan Gross,Jonathan Rieder,Diana Wong,Ben Kerkvliet,Bill Kelly,Vivienne Shue,Gerald Jaynes和Bob Harms。还有一些未留下姓名的人,他们同意甚至请求阅读原稿,或许他们看过其中的一些篇章,却给予了重新的思考。他们知道他们是谁。不好意思!
自1978年以来,许多机构的资助使得我和这项研究事业得以持续。我要特别感谢约翰·西蒙·古根海姆纪念基金会(John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation)、国家科学基金(批准号SOC 7802756)和耶鲁大学对我在马来西亚研究的支持。最近,由麻省理工学院“科学、技术与社会项目”授予的埃克森基金(Exxon Fellowship)使本书的最终草稿和大多数修订工作得以完成。Carl Kaysen容忍了我对书稿倾注过多的精力,并且与Martin Kreiger,Kenneth Kenniston, Charles Weiner, Peter Buck, Loren Graham, Carla Kirmani, Leo Marx和Emma Rothschild一起,帮助我保持智识上的收获。由日本大阪的国家民族学博物馆主办、Shigeharu Tanabe和Andrew Turton安排的“东南亚的历史与农民意识”研讨会,有助于使我的观点更加明晰。由社会科学研究委员会帮助组织的在海牙社会研究所举行的另一个有着更多争论的工作讨论会,对本书第七章有关反抗的分析起了重要的作用。尽管我不清楚这两次会议的参与者是否完全认同我所提出的论点,但他们至少应该知道他们的著述和批评对本书具有何等重要的价值。
应当感谢的还有下列对本书早期的部分内容给予发表的出版物:《国际政治科学评论》(1973年10月);《东南亚的历史与农民意识》(Andrew Turton和Shigeharo Tanabe编,“山崎民族学研究”第13期;大阪:国家民族学博物馆,1984);《政治人类学》(1982);《马来西亚研究》1:1(1983年6月,马来文)。
本书的出版倾注了许多打字员、排版员和编辑的心血,他们高兴地看到这一出自他们之手的书稿。其中我特别要感谢的是Beverly Apothaker,Kay Mansfield和Ruth Muessig出色的工作。
本书与我的家庭生活的相互交融已经足以免除任何通常在此要说的常规套话。在此我可以说,尽管我努力了,但从未能够哪怕稍微让路易丝和孩子们相信,他们也在为我写作本书出力。

Activists and politicians have long recognized the power of a good story to move people to action. In early 1960 four black college students sat down at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave. Within a month sit-ins spread to thirty cities in seven states. Student participants told stories of impulsive, spontaneous action—this despite all the planning that had gone into the sit-ins. “It was like a fever,” they said.
Francesca Polletta’s It Was Like a Fever sets out to account for the power of storytelling in mobilizing political and social movements. Drawing on cases ranging from sixteenth-century tax revolts to contemporary debates about the future of the World Trade Center site, Polletta argues that stories are politically effective not when they have clear moral messages, but when they have complex, often ambiguous ones. The openness of stories to interpretation has allowed disadvantaged groups, in particular, to gain a hearing for new needs and to forge surprising political alliances. But popular beliefs in America about storytelling as a genre have also hurt those challenging the status quo.
A rich analysis of storytelling in courtrooms, newsrooms, public forums, and the United States Congress, It Was Like a Fever offers provocative new insights into the dynamics of culture and contention.

这本书是一项关于中国法律职业的大型实证研究，作者秉承社会学芝加哥学派的生态分析传统，对我国法律服务市场各个领域的竞争与规范问题进行了全面的社会科学分析。基于作者在2004-2007年间对中国12个省份的250余位法律执业者和国家官员的深入访谈、对中国律师网互动社区的三年参与观察以及大量历史材料收集工作，书中研究表明，中国法律服务市场的社会结构是高度割据的，多个法律职业群体占据了这一市场的各个角落，律师业与其他职业之间的管辖权界限十分模糊，而管理律师业的司法行政机关，在同样高度割据的国家管理体系中也处于相对弱势的地位，因此律师在法律服务市场上的地位就显得极不稳固。为了解释这一割据现象，作者在书中提出了一个关于定界与交换的空间社会学理论，并将其应用在中国法律服务市场的五个空间领域：边疆（农村法律服务）、战场（城市基层法律服务）、高端（涉外法律服务）、后院（企业与政府法律服务）、雷区（刑事法律服务）。这不仅是一本法律社会学的学术著作，而且是一次对于我国法律职业发展状况的深度透视，具有重要的理论和实践意义，值得法学、社会学、政治学及其他相关学科背景的学者、学生和实务人员参考。

For two thousand years the disparate groups that now reside in Zomia (a mountainous region the size of Europe that consists of portions of seven Asian countries) have fled the projects of the organized state societies that surround them?slavery, conscription, taxes, corvée labor, epidemics, and warfare. This book, essentially an ?anarchist history,? is the first-ever examination of the huge literature on state-making whose author evaluates why people would deliberately and reactively remain stateless. Among the strategies employed by the people of Zomia to remain stateless are physical dispersion in rugged terrain; agricultural practices that enhance mobility; pliable ethnic identities; devotion to prophetic, millenarian leaders; and maintenance of a largely oral culture that allows them to reinvent their histories and genealogies as they move between and around states.
In accessible language, James Scott, recognized worldwide as an eminent authority in Southeast Asian, peasant, and agrarian studies, tells the story of the peoples of Zomia and their unlikely odyssey in search of self-determination. He redefines our views on Asian politics, history, demographics, and even our fundamental ideas about what constitutes civilization, and challenges us with a radically different approach to history that presents events from the perspective of stateless peoples and redefines state-making as a form of ?internal colonialism.? This new perspective requires a radical reevaluation of the civilizational narratives of the lowland states. Scott?s work on Zomia represents a new way to think of area studies that will be applicable to other runaway, fugitive, and marooned communities, be they Gypsies, Cossacks, tribes fleeing slave raiders, Marsh Arabs, or San-Bushmen.

恰恰出于这样的恐惧：害怕肆无忌惮的统治者分离他们、掠夺他们、以危险的方式干预他们，历史上一些强大的信任网络——如宗族集团、秘密教派、贸易离散社群——便借助各种方式力图免遭政治控制。《信任与统治》一书通过时间上和空间上的广泛比较，对信任网络的成员如何躲避政权、向政权妥协或寻求与政权建立联系进行了考察，并对其行为的过程和后果进行了阐释。统治者对不同信任网络采用的不同整合形式，亦分别衍生了极权体制、神权体制和民主体制；就此而言，本书为阐明民主化和去民主化提供了不可或缺的阐释背景。