ABSTRACT
Comparisons come in different shapes and sizes, large and small, implicit and explicit, heuristic and hierarchical. There are “spontaneous” comparisons which arrive at judgments between things in relation to each other but without any particular analytical project. There are reciprocal visions, or the view of the Other: Americans fawn over or fear (“impossible to wear”) Paris fashions while the French rush to see American films while rising up against McDonald’s. Arthur Young’s view of France or Chateaubriand’s image of America are all based on the comparative gaze, as are experts’ investigations abroad. What I examine here, however, are the constructed comparisons of scholars, who may indeed study the ways in which historical actors exchange information and compare each other, but who may also create their own subjects of comparison.
