1. Thabang : from remote village to revolutionary myth --
2. The moral economy of war : the making of the base area --
3. Becoming Maoist in a time of insurgency --
4. The marital economy of war : reconfiguring kinship loyalties and conjugality --
5. Remaking the tribe : "a farewell to bad traditions?" --
6. Subverting the "sacred cow" --
7. when beef becomes edible --
8. When all castes become one : transgressing caste boundaries during war --
9. When Gods return to their homeland in the Himalayas : Maoism, religion, and change --
Conclusion --
Conclusion --
Appendices

This book is an ethnography of social change and norm-remaking brought about by the Maoist People's War in Nepal between 1996 and 2006. Drawing on long-term fieldwork with people in the former Maoist heartland, including both committed Maoist revolutionaries and 'reluctant rebels', it explores how a remote Himalayan village was forged as the centre of the Maoist rebellion, how its inhabitants coped with the situation of war, and how they came to embrace the Maoist project and maintain ordinary life during war. Contrary to the dominant narrative, even in the Maoist capital, hailed as a village of resistance, a lot of ordinary people were only 'reluctant rebels' who supported the Maoists because of kinship ties, moral solidarity, and compliance with the Maoist regime of governance