Hills, valleys, and states: an introduction to zomia -- state space: zones of governance and appropriation -- concentrating manpower and grain: slavery and irrigated rice -- civilization and the unruly -- keeping the state at a distance: the peopling of the hills -- state evasion, state prevention: the culture and agriculture of escape -- orality, writing, and texts -- ethnogenesis: a radical constructionist case -- prophets of renewal -- conclusion

1. Ethnology -- Southeast Asia
2. Peasants -- Southeast Asia -- Political activity
3. Southeast Asia -- Politics and government -- 1945-
4. Southeast Asia -- Rural conditions