One of the most distinguished social scientists in the world addresses one of the central historical questions of the past millennium: does the European Renaissance deserve its unique status at the very heart of our notions of modernity? Jack Goody scrutinises the European model in relation to parallel renaissances that have taken place in other cultural areas, primarily Islam and China, and emphasises what Europe owed to non-European influences. Renaissances continues that strand of historical analysis critical of Eurocentrism that Goody has developed in recent works like The East and the West (1996) or The Theft of History (2006). This book is wide-ranging, powerful, deftly argued, and draws upon the author's long experience of working in Africa and elsewhere. Not since Toynbee in The Study of History has anybody attempted quite what Jack Goody is undertaking in Renaissances, and the result is as accessible as it is ambitious.

傑剋·古迪（Jack Goody，1919—2015），英國著名社會人類學傢、曆史學傢，劍橋大學社會人類學係榮譽教授，聖約翰學院成員，因其對人類學研究的貢獻被英國女王封為爵士。1976年入選英國社會科學院，1980年當選美國藝術與科學院外籍榮譽成員，2004年當選美國國傢科學院院士。古迪在人類學、社會學和曆史學等多個領域都頗有建樹，其代錶作有《偷竊曆史》《西方中的東方》《烹飪、菜肴與階級》《金屬，文化與資本主義：論現代世界的起源》《神話、儀式與口述》《文藝復興：一個還是多個？》《歐洲傢庭與婚姻的發展》《花的文化》和《飲食與愛情》等。