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Social scientists, when making their studies of the structure of family groups, have often observed the current situation of a particular group of families and drawn conclusions from that static picture. Valuable as many of these conclusions may be, they are incomplete because they overlook the important fact that the structure of the family changes. These changes can be fitted into a developmental cycle in which the family or group changes in composition from its original two members to a larger group and finally two again. This book, originally published in 1958, is introduced by a substantial essay and reviews the papers collected here and discusses the theoretical background and implications of the use of the concept of the developmental cycle. The papers each demonstrate how the changing structure of the domestic group may be seen to explain otherwise obscure elements of the particular society.

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.

Originally published in 1975, this book presents the results of research into social change in Ghana. The book looks in detail at the problems of particular sub-groups and sectors in one single nation

Metals, Culture and Capitalism is an ambitious, broad-ranging account of the search for metals in Europe and the Near East from the Bronze Age to the Industrial Revolution and the relationship between this and economic activity, socio-political structures and the development of capitalism. Continuing his criticism of Eurocentric traditions, a theme explored in The Theft of History (2007) and Renaissances (2009), Jack Goody takes the Bronze Age as a starting point for a balanced account of the East and the West, seeking commonalities that recent histories overlook. Considering the role of metals in relation to early cultures, the European Renaissance and 'modernity' in general, Goody explores how the search for metals entailed other forms of knowledge, as well as the arts, leading to changes that have defined Europe and the contemporary world. This landmark text, spanning centuries, cultures and continents, promises to inspire scholars and students across the social sciences.

In The Oriental, the Ancient and the Primitive one of the world's most foremost anthropologists looks in depth at kinship practice in Asia, and continues the comparative survey of pre-industrial family formation undertaken in The Development of Family and Marriage in Europe (1983) and elsewhere. Professor Goody's findings cause him to question many traditional assumptions about the 'primitive' east, and he suggests that, in contrast to pre-colonial Africa, kinship practice in Asia has much in common with that prevailing in parts of pre-industrial Europe. Goody examines the transmission of productive and other property in relation both to the prevailing political economy and to family and ideological structures, and then explores the distribution of mechanisms and strategies of management across cultures. He concludes that notions of western 'uniqueness' are often misplaced, and that much previous work on Asian kinship has been unwittingly distorted by the application of concepts and

Jack Goody's book explores the development of the discipline of social anthropology through its key practitioners and how far its concerns interacted with the political and ideological debate of the interwar years. It is a study of the different ideological and intellectual approaches adopted by the emerging subject of social anthropology and how far these views were incorporated into and defined by the structures and institutions in which they developed. However it is also an analysis of how far the subject was created by its own response to key issues of the time: colonialism - specifically Africa, anti-Semitism and communism. Goody's approach is characteristically personal: Malinowski dominates the discussion, as well as Fortes, Radcliffe-Brown and Evans-Pritchard, and his own experience, gathered over a wide-ranging life of fieldwork informs the conclusion of the book.

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 historica

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 in the invention of (notably) democracy, capitalism, individualism and love. Goody, one of the world's most distinguished anthropologists, raises questions about theorists, historians and methodology and proposes a new comparative approach to cross-cultural analysis which allows for more scope in examining history than an East versus West style.

Ethnographers of religion have created a vast record of religious behavior from small-scale non-literate societies to globally distributed religions in urban settings. So a theory that claims to expla