Event details

It is far from easy to do either cross-chronological or cross-cultural history well. As someone engaged for nearly forty years in forging comparisons of both types, I have experienced the promise and perils, as well as the blank walls. Far too few historians think about what topics are truly comparable; at the same time, the minute we think or write or talk about another era or another culture in English, we are doing comparative history, and to pretend otherwise is likely to spur ahistorical imaginaries. This talk will try to summarize what comparative approaches generally work and where the greatest obstacles always lie, based on my own experience and that of my two teachers Michael Loewe and Nathan Sivin.