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The Theft of History
Jack Goody is one of the pre-eminent social scientists in the world.
Over the past half century his pioneering writings at the intersections of
anthropology, history, and social and cultural studies have made him one
of the most widely read, most widely cited, and most widely translated
scholars working today.
In The Theft of History Goody builds on his own previous work
(notably The East in the West)toextend further his highly influential
critique of what he sees as the pervasive Eurocentric, or Occidental-
ist, biases of so much western historical writing, and the consequent
‘theft’ by the west of the achievements of other cultures in the inven-
tion of (notably) democracy, capitalism, individualism, and love. This
argument will generate passionate debate, as his previous works have
done, and many will dissent from Goody’s perceptive conclusions. Few,
however, will be able to ignore the force of his thought, or the breadth
of knowledge brought to the discussion.
The Theft of History discusses a number of theorists in detail, includ-
ing Marx, Weber, and Norbert Elias, and engages with critical admira-
tion western historians like Fernand Braudel, Moses Finley, and Perry
Anderson. Many questions of method are raised in these discussions,
and Goody proposes a parative methodology for cross-cultural
analysis, one that gives a much more sophisticated basis for assessing
divergent historical es, and replaces outmoded simple differ-
ences between, for example, the ‘backward East’ and the ‘inventive
West’.
Historians, anthropologists, social theorists, and cultural critics will
all find something of real value in The Theft of History. It will be a cat-
alyst for discussion of some of the most important conceptual issues
confronting western historians today, at a time when notions of ‘global
history’ are filtering into the historical mainstream for the first time.
is Emeritus P