Seeing Like a State: Schemes to Improve Have Fail by James C. Scott | Book Club

Full Title: Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed
Suggested by: Member
Pages to read: TBP
ISBN: 9780300078152 (Originally listed edition)
ISBN: 9780300252989 (Edition Eugene is using)

Eugene's review of the book (Blog Link, Click Here)

Community Guidelines (Meetup Link, Click Here)

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Forthcoming Similar Events:
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2 - Foreign Policy - 08/30/2025 = How States Think by John J. Mearsheimer, Sebastian Rosato
3 - Fiction / Controller of the Universe - 09/13/2025 = The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams
4 - State - 10/04/2025 = The Land of Hope and Fear: Israel's Battle by Isabel Kershner
5 - Trying To Help - 11/29/2025 = Weapons of Math Destruction: Big Data by Cathy O'Neill

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While reading the book, consider the below questions:
•What is the raison d’etre of the book? For what purpose did the author write the book? Why do people read this book?
•What are some limitations of the book?
•To whom would you suggest this book?
•What does it take for a state to be legible?
•When do interventions have negative consequences?
•Why simplify information?
•What effect did standardized rules have on forest ecology?
•How are cities designed?
•What happens to local monopolies of information for a society to be legible?
•How does scale of the intervention effect information?
•Why give people sur (last) names?
•What is high modernism?
•What is a dictatorship of the planner?
•What did Jane Jacobs want from a city?
•Why would leaders want a sedentary society?
•What is pragmatic knowledge?

Your questions are important and will take priority. If you have questions about the book's content or related ideas, either let me know what your questions are or raise them during the discussion.