Looking back over the twentieth century we can see many examples of utopian schemes which have inadvertently brought disruption to millions; from compulsory ‘extended family’ villages in Tanzania, collectivisation in Russia, Le Corbusier’s urban planning, the Great Leap Forward in China and agricultural ‘modernization’ in the tropics. Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry? Drawing upon his highly original book of the same title, and his long-term work in South East Asia (Burma in particular), Professor Scott helps us to understand how potentially harmful “state-spaces” are constructed. He shows how large-scale authoritarian schemes fail through the violence which they impose upon complex interdependencies which cannot be fully understood. He suggests that design for successful social organisation - like cities - depends on the recognition that local, practical, knowledge is as important as formal, abstract, knowledge in addressing the challenges which we now face.