I have long been an admirer of VV’s column on books, which appears every Saturday, and avidly follow his recommendation. I was dismayed, however, on noting a mistake in his most recent column “Societies against the state” (July 24). He has mentioned Paul Scott as the author of The Art Of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History Of Upland Southeast Asia. Paul Scott is the novelist whose books came to form the Jewel in the Crown series on TV. But, this particular book is by the social anthropologist James C Scott whose earlier pathbreaking work titled Seeing like a State was set in the same area, i.e. Indonesia.
Anuradha Kumar, New Delhi
