Jack Goody sets his own observations on cooking in West Africa. He criticizes those approaches which overlook the comparative historical dimension of culinary, and other, cultural differences that emerge in class societies, both of which elements he particularly emphasizes in this book.[...]

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 ?t[...]

In The Theft of History 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 and the consequent 'theft' by the West of the achievements of other cultures[...]