Goody lecture: the solace of the past in the unspeakable present: the historical anthropology of the 'Near East'

I shall begin by paying respect to the place Jack Goody accords the 'Near East' in his long argument against historical readings which pit the West against the East in Eurasia. Over the years Goody has written anthropological histories of the longue durée concerning institutions, technologies and substances but never wavered in his central opposition to this dichotomy. His output has been daunting. Yet arguments for fundamental difference flourish anew in institutional economics and history. I shall briefly describe both these ideological revivals and the formidable methodological difficulties that history of such a longue durée entails even for Goody. I shall then turn to what is not spoken about in present debates: recent agrarian history, and legal and administrative history, in the glaring light of the present.