Table of Contents

Introduction; Part I: 1. Who stole what? Time and space; 2. Antiquity: no markets, but did they invent politics, freedom and the alphabet?; 3. Feudalism: transition to capitalism or the collapse of Europe and the domination of Asia; 4. Asiatic despots, in Turkey and elsewhere?; Part II: 5. Science and civilization in Renaissance Europe; 6. The theft of 'civilization': Elias and Absolutist Europe; 7. The theft of 'capitalism': Braudel and global comparison; Part III: 8. The theft of institutions, towns, and universities; 9. The appropriation of values: humanism, democracy and individualism; 10. Stolen love: European claims to the emotions; 11. Last words; Bibliography.

Promotional Information

Jack Goody extends his influential critique of the pervasive eurocentric biases of western historical writing.

About the Author

Jack Goody is Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology in the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St John's College. Recently knighted by Her Majesty The Queen for services to anthropology, Professor Goody has researched and taught all over the world, is a Fellow of the British Academy and in 1980 was made a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Reviews

'Goody identifies an academic audience that reflects the broad territory he has explored in the course of a very long and productive career … The sophistication of the design and manufacture of the Antikythera mechanism, unparalleled in museum collections, independently endorses Goody's contention that big gaps in the archaeological and documentary records seriously affect our understanding.' Journal of Contemporary History