Intercultural comparative historiography raises fundamental methodological problems: Is there any ground for comparison beyond the peculiarities and differences of cultures to be compared? One must avoid taking the Western cultural tradition of historical thinking as the basis for the comparison. Therefore one has to conceptualize the theoretical grounds for comparison and explicate elements of historical thinking which operate in every culture. Then cultural differences in historiography can be analyzed as peculiar constellations of these elements. In order to develop this comparative (...) groundwork, one has to start with some fundamental considerations about historical memory as the universal cultural means of orienting human practical life in its temporal dimensions. On this foundation one has to erect a theory of historical consciousness and its constitutive factors, procedures, and functions. In a systematized form the relationship of these elements can be used to identify the varieties of historical thinking in different contexts over time. This approach has as one objective an intercultural exchange of knowledge about history as a medium for identity-forming. It should enable the participants in this exchange to overcome the widespread logic of exclusion in favor of a more inclusive manner of historical self-understanding. (shrink)

Just like history, historiography is usually written and analyzed within one spatio‐temporal setting, traditionally that of a particular nation‐state. As a consequence, historiography tends to localize explanations for historiographical developments within national contexts and to neglect international dimensions. As long as that is the case, it is impossible to assess the general and specific aspects of historiographical case studies. This forum, therefore, represents a sustained argument for comparative approaches to historiography.First, my introduction takes a recent study in Canadian historiography as (...) a point of departure in order to illustrate the problems of non‐comparative historiography. These problems point to strong arguments in favor of comparative approaches. Second, I place comparative historiography as a genre in relation to a typology that orders theories of historiography on a continuum ranging from general and philosophical to particular and empirical. Third, I put recent debates on the “fragmentation” of historiography in a comparative perspective. Worries among historians about this fragmentation—usually associated with the fragmentation of the nation and the advent of multiculturalism and/or postmodernism—are legitimate when they concern the epistemological foundations of history as a discipline. As soon as the “fragmentation” of historiography leads to—and is legitimated by—epistemological skepticism, a healthy pluralism has given way to an unhealthy relativism. As comparison puts relativism in perspective by revealing its socio‐historical foundations, at the same time it creates its rational antidote.Fourth, I summarize the contributions to this forum; all deal—directly or indirectly—with the historiography of the Second World War. Jürgen Kocka's “Asymmetrical Historical Comparison: The Case of the German Sonderweg” examines the so‐called “special path” of Germany's history. Daniel Levy's “The Future of the Past: Historiographical Disputes and Competing Memories in Germany and Israel” offers a comparative analysis of recent historiographical debates in Germany and Israel. Sebastian Conrad's “What Time is Japan? Problems of Comparative Historiography” analyzes the conceptual linkage between Japanese historiography and specific interpretations of European history. Richard Bosworth's “Explaining ‘Auschwitz’ after the End of History: The Case of Italy” charts in a comparative perspective the changes since 1989 in Italian historiography concerning fascism. All four articles support the conclusion that next to the method of historical comparison is the politics of comparison, which is hidden in the choice of the parameters. Analyses of both method and politics are essential for an understanding of historiography. (shrink)

A prominent historiographic theme in the past decade has been a movement away from causal explanation of large-scale processes and outcomes and toward narrative interpretation of singular historical processes. This article argues for the continued vitality of large-scale historical inquiry and surveys the historiographic issues that arise in large-scale historical explanation. The article proceeds through an examination of several important recent examples of large-scale history: comparative history of Europe and China, the history of alternative forms of industrial organization, and the (...) history of technology. These three cases provide the basis for a conception of what may be called "conjunctural contingent meso-level" explanations: explanations that identify intermediate-level structures and processes and highlight both the structural factors that govern change and the multiple pathways that change can take. (shrink)

Ambiguities in the concept of ideology may be clarified by a history of the word and the phenomenon. "Ideology" can mean both the consciousness of an epoch and the "false consciousness" of men unaware of their true historical position. It was coined in early nineteenth-century France for a "science of ideas," knowledge of which would assure harmonious social life . For Hegel, ideology is the false consciousness necessarily arising from the partial and transitory nature of thought in its dialectical development. (...) Marx, as a materialist, went further, holding all speculative thought to be ideological defense of the status quo; Nietzsche cynically reduced all thought to ideology. Weber, Lukfics, and Mannheim made a more creative critique. For Lukdcs, the solution of the problem of ideology lay in the consciousness of the proletariate, the "identical subject-object" of history; for Mannheim, in that of the intellectuals. (shrink)

(1999). Towards a 'Comparative History of the Foundations of Science': Language and Logic in Traditional China. Annals of Science: Vol. 56, No. 4, pp. 451-460.

Physics first became established in Australia and Japan at the same period, during the final quarter of the nineteenth and the first years of the twentieth century. A comparison of the processes by which this happened in these two developing countries on the Pacific rim shows that, despite the great cultural differences that existed, and that might have been expected to have been a source of major differences in national receptiveness to the new science, there were in fact many parallels (...) between the patterns of development in the two cases. Identifying these enables us to draw attention to a number of significant features of the physics discipline more generally at this period. Such differences as emerge in the early history of physics in the two countries seem to have arisen more from the different political situations that prevailed than from anything else; in particular they reflect the fact that Australia was a part of the British Empire while Japan was an independent political power. (shrink)