Social anthropology flourished in the 20th century but ethnographic methods and intensifying ‘creative destruction’ in the elaboration of theory have combined to deflect attention away from earlier concerns with long-term historical change. The ‘theft of history’ that took place within anthropology refers to this loss, which is not to be confused with healthy interdisciplinary borrowing. With the demise of the evolutionist paradigm and intensifying global connectivity, anthropologists have struggled to find a new balance between empirical ethnographic description, the interpretation of other social worlds, and theoretical explanation. It is not so much that the canon has continued to change but that many practitioners no longer acknowledge any canon. The difficulties are illustrated with a critical discussion of the Anglophone anthropological literature in a field that is novel for the discipline: socialism and its aftermath. The work of Jack Goody has a surprising relevance here; more generally, Goody’s oeuvre shows how ethnographic excellence and intellectual originality can be harnessed together to serve a longue durée comparative historical anthropology.
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