The theft of history

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

The theft of history

Jack Goody

Cambridge University Press, 2006

  • : paperback
  • : hardback

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Note

Bibliography: p. 307-323

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Professor Jack Goody builds on his own previous work to extend further his highly influential critique of what he sees as the pervasive eurocentric or occidentalist biases of so much western historical writing. Goody also examines the consequent 'theft' by the West of the achievements of other cultures in the invention of (notably) democracy, capitalism, individualism, and love. The Theft of History discusses a number of theorists in detail, including Marx, Weber and Norbert Elias, and engages with critical admiration western historians like Fernand Braudel, Moses Finlay and Perry Anderson. Major questions of method are raised, and Goody proposes a new comparative methodology for cross-cultural analysis, one that gives a much more sophisticated basis for assessing divergent historical outcomes, and replaces outmoded simple differences between East and West. The Theft of History will be read by an unusually wide audience of historians, anthropologists and social theorists.

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.

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Details

  • NCID
    BA80184713
  • ISBN
    • 9780521691055
    • 9780521870696
  • LCCN
    2006036012
  • Country Code
    uk
  • Title Language Code
    eng
  • Text Language Code
    eng
  • Place of Publication
    Cambridge
  • Pages/Volumes
    x, 342 p.
  • Size
    24 cm
  • Classification
  • Subject Headings
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