Many have wondered if in the future more or less near the West will lose its world hegemony in relation to the rapid progress of China. But for Jack Goody, one of Britain's leading anthropologists, the superiority of the West is largely unreal, even if we look to the recent past.

It is for him, an illusion sustained in a distorted way of seeing history - a "theft" historic. This is reflected in his recent controversial book, "The Theft of History," just published in England at the University of Cambridge by this emeritus professor.

Goody leaves no stone unturned to criticize classic authors such as Karl Marx, Max Weber, Nobert Elias, and Fernand Braudel to show that democracy, capitalism, freedom and even the concept of romantic love, are aspects that are far from unique inventions of the West. Such deception is but one fruit of "ethnocentrism," which seeks to justify and also perpetuate the plan of ideas -- domination at the level of facts -- built by the colonial regimes and the Industrial Revolution.

And what the author means, with the title in his book, is that Europeans wrote the story from their point of view, that part of the unique advantages of the West, without much attention to the rest, especially to Asia and the Middle East.

Of course anthropology has tried to do something to change ethnocentrism, but undertook a distinction between traditional societies and modern societies, which endorses a vision of contemporary Western society and modernity.

Recall that Claude Levi-Strauss once said that history was a Western myth, but Goody does not think so, because other societies have had a past too, though little studied. Goody says the West, in explaining modernity and capitalism, was very negligent in recognizing other historical visions.

For example, it was always believed that democracy was born in Athens and in fact there appeared a particular form of democracy, but democracy existed first in Carthage, even in some cities in the Mediterranean, India, China and other "tribal" societies.

  Karl Max and Max Weber were wrong in their thesis about capitalism, because capitalism -- despite the industrial revolution -- was far more widespread. It was first a product of sowing cotton and the exploitation of silk in India and China.

In another example, Goody explains how Elias and Braudel have overemphasized the European contribution in relation to modernity, when in fact this happened first in India and China. The concept of capitalism is rather a concept of the 19-century, says Goody, which should be used more carefully and has only been used for overvaluation of the differences between Europe and Asia.

And in Asia, the reality was always more advanced than the West in art and science, even in what was considered romantic love. It was not a Western invention but is a universal sentiment that already existed.

Asia has always been part of the global scene, because China was the biggest exporter of the 18th century. Thus, what they see as happening now is simply the end of "European dominance."