The East in the West

A provocative, wide-ranging study which challenges our assumptions about Eastern 'backwardness'.

Jack Goody (Author)

9780521556736, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 21 March 1996

304 pages, 2 b/w illus.
23.2 x 15.7 x 2.1 cm, 0.495 kg

'The East in the West represents a valuable contribution to a debate which has become increasingly pressing.' David Washbrook, Economic History Review

The East in the West reassesses Western views of Asia. Traditionally many European historians and theorists have seen the societies of the East as 'static' or 'backward'. Jack Goody challenges these assumptions, beginning with the notion of a special Western rationality which enabled 'us' and not 'them' to modernise. He then turns to book-keeping, which several social and economic historians have seen as intrinsic to capitalism, arguing that there was in fact little difference between East and West in terms of mercantile activity. Other factors said to inhibit the East's development, such as the family and forms of labour, have also been greatly exaggerated. This Eurocentrism both fails to explain the current achievements of the East, and misunderstands Western history. The East in the West starts to redress the balance, and so marks a fundamental shift in our view of Western and Eastern history and society.

Introduction: the West's problem with the East
1. Rationality in review
2. Rationality and ragioneria: The Keeping of Books and the Economic Miracle
3. Indian trade and Economy in the Medieval and Early Colonial Periods
4. The Growth of Indian Commerce and Industry
5. Family and business in the East
6. From collective to individual? The historiography of the family in the West
7. Labour, Production and Communication
8. Revaluations.

Subject Areas: Anthropology [JHM], History of ideas [JFCX], Cultural studies [JFC], Social & cultural history [HBTB]