Polity Capitalism and Modernity: The Great Debate

This important new book investigates how the West attained its current position of economic and social advantage. In an incisive historical analysis, Jack Goody examines when and why Europe (and Anglo-America) started to outstrip all other continents in socio-economic growth. Review ′One of the world′s best–known anthropologists asks what modernity is [and] how it originated. [ Capitalism and Modernity] updates readers very well on the state of the discussion.′ Kenneth Pomeranz, Journal of Social History From the Back Cover This important new book investigates how the West attained its current position of economic and social advantage. In an incisive historical analysis, Jack Goody examines when and why Europe (and Anglo–America) started to outstrip all other continents in socio–economic growth. Drawing on non–Western examples of economic and technical progress, Goody challenges assumptions about long–term European supremacy of a cultural kind, as was a feature of many theories current in social science. He argues that the divergence came with the Industrial Revolution and that the earlier bourgeois revolution of the sixteenth century was but one among many Eurasia–wide expressions of developing mercantile and manufacturing activity. This original book casts new light on the history of capitalism, industrialization and modernity, and will be essential reading for all those interested in the great debate about the economic rise of the West. About the Author Jack Goody is Emeritus William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology at St. Johns College, Cambridge