The Theft of History

"Awareness of the history of Africa led Goody to emphasise what east and west, Asia and Europe, had and have in common. Opposing traditional views of the long “rise of the west”, he argued that the two regions alternated for supremacy until the years around 1800 (The East in the West, 1996). Instead of speaking of a European miracle, like some western historians, he thought in terms of a Eurasian miracle, “based on the common attainments of the Bronze Age”. His implied criticism of Eurocentrism became explicit in some of his later books, notably The Theft of History (2006), in which he undermined western claims to have invented democracy, capitalism and individualism." Obituary, The Guardian, 11 Sep 2015