Agricultural Involution: The Processes of Ecological Change in Indonesia

Agricultural Involution: The Processes of Ecological Change in Indonesiais one of the most famous of the early works ofClifford Geertz. It principal thesis is that many centuries of intensifying wet-rice cultivation in Indonesia had produced greater social complexity without significant technological or political change, a process Geertz terms "involution".Written for aUS-funded project on the local developmentsand following the modernization theory ofWalt Whitman Rostow, Geertz examines in this book the agricultural system inIndonesiaand its two dominant forms of agriculture, swidden and sawah. In addition to researching its agricultural systems, the book turns to an examination of their historical development. Of particular note is Geertz's discussion of what he famously describes as the process of "agricultural involution"in Java, where both the external economic demands of the Dutch rulers and the internal pressures due to population growth led to intensification rather than change. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1969.
Agricultural Involution: The Processes of Ecological Change in Indonesiais one of the most famous of the early works ofClifford Geertz. It principal thesis is that many centuries of intensifying wet-rice cultivation in Indonesia had produced greater soc