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comparison

child

parent

Holocaust

is a methodological approach that requires one to cut up and kill history.

And yet if we really wish to learn somehting from an example, how vague and elusive do we find the comparison! If it is to give us strength, many of the differences must be neglected, the individualityof the past forced into a general formula and all the sharp angles broken off for the sake of correspondence' (Nietzsche 1873:14).

is a tool operating between empirical units which are neither discrete nor self-evident, but as units which emerge within fuzzy and volatile boundaries, at the intersection of wider and more encompassing processes.

Max Gluckman, for instance, was among the first to challenge dominant assumptions about discrete, selfevident empirical units as starting points for comparative analyses. Through his own analysis of 'Zululand' (Gluckman 1958) as a product of colonial and capitalist expansion, Gluckman demonstrated that these units of comparison emerge, within fuzzy and volatile boundaries, at the intersection of wider and more encompassing processes. (Gingrich and Fox 2002: 4)

resulted in works like Embree this 'chief' can be compared to that chief

is not a methodological problem, but a historical object with changing stakes for polities and their bureaucratic apparatuses.

If comparison of discrete 'cases' is so problematic, another line of inquiry might treat comparison, not as a methodological problem, but as a historical object. We might historicize the politics of comparison, tracing the changing stakes for polities and their bureaucratic apparatuses' (Stoler 2001:862).

is not only a methodological problem. It is also a historical object which can be inquired into.

All bravery stands upon comparisons. Francis Bacon

Comparisons are odious. Miguel de Cervantes

is an utterly useless analytic method in discussions of God, for God cannot be compared to anything.

God cannot be compared to anything. Note this. Maimonides

comparison, n.All

comparison