So-called Zomia, a mountainous part of Southeast Asia with a population of more than 100 million people, is united not only by geography, but also by very special forms of social structure, agriculture, mobility and culture. For centuries, the inhabitants of Zomia successfully resisted state building and essentially existed without a state, avoiding statistical surveys, conscription and taxation. A detailed outline of the structure of this unique civilization of freedom is in the new book of the outstanding American anthropologist James Scott.