ABSTRACT
Comparative history and cultural history have not been the best of friends. But this need not be the case unless one is primarily concerned with pointing the way towards causal explanations. If comparative history’s focus on separating the important from the incidental acts as its guiding principle, then cultural history’s relationship to the comparative will remain only casual. Instead, I want to encourage a more intimate relationship between the two by taking a slightly different strategy. I propose that we consider the tensions between the comparative and cross-national alongside those between the structural and the post-structural. I do not want to argue that one approach is right and the other wrong, but to use the tensions between them as a creative way of understanding cultural transfer and influences, differences, and similarities. Given the skepticism that has arisen between proponents of these different approaches, my strategy here might require a leap of faith. But it is one worth taking because it will, I hope, encourage invention and flexibility, analytical rigor and imagination. Perhaps more important, it will encourage an exchange between historical inquiries that share a great deal in common.
