The preparation, serving and eating of food are common features of all human societies, and have been the focus of study for numerous anthropologists - from Sir James Frazer onwards - from a variety of theoretical and empirical perspectives. It is in the context of this previous anthropological work that Jack Goody sets his own observations on cooking in West Africa. He criticises 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 emphasises in this book. The...

The East in the West reassesses Western views of Asia, which much European history and social theory has seen as "static" or "backward." Jack Goody challenges these Eurocentric assumptions, including the notion of a special Western rationality, and differences in mercantile activity. Other factors "inhibiting" the East's development, such as the role of the family, have also been greatly exaggerated, and have contributed to a misunderstanding of both Eastern and Western history and society. This wide-ranging and provocative book begins to redress the balance.