"If we are to take up and develop the tradition of comparative work, which has been so neglected in recent years by historians, sociologists and anthropologists alike, then the best strategy at this stage is to avoid the kind of overall comparisons that are invited by words like tribalism, feudalism, capitalism.

[2] Goody devotes the second chapter to an examination of the economic and technological aspects of pre-colonial African society, which he argues distinguish it from Medieval Europe specifically and Eurasia more generally.

However, according to Goody it was in its "means of production" rather than its "productive relations" that Africa's economy differed greatly from that of Eurasia; describing the continent as a "land of extensive agriculture", Goody noted that it had a relatively small population, plentiful land, and poor soils, and that notably the majority of Africa did not have access to the plough, an invention that only reached as far south as Ethiopia.

[3] "It is≈≥±−÷§ the thesis of this present work that the nature of 'indigenous' African social structure, especially in its political aspects, has been partly misunderstood because of a failure to appreciate certain basic technological differences between Africa and Eurasia.

But the problem is not only historical; in many areas 'traditional' African social structure exists (in a somewhat modified form) precisely because the rural economy has not greatly changed.

Although Goody accepted the possible existence of "broad resemblances between the states of medieval Europe and those of pre-colonial Africa", in particular similarities between their "monarchical systems of government", he dismisses the use of such a "vague and all-embracing concept" as feudalism, believing that it ignores the multiple differences – primarily regarding "economics and technology" – which differentiate the two continents.

"[7] Although he notes that the theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels – the founders of Marxist thought – gave much to the study of how society's progress, Goody believed that this orthodox Marxist approach when dealing with African history "blocks advance" because it held to a "rigid attachment to particular European-based schema, whether this be derived from an explicit ideological commitment or from an inability to see beyond our own cultural tradition.