I do not believe that you are able to compare and contrast
two completely different empires for all aspects. Of course I feel that there
are certain similarities that different societies do, but for the most part
they all arose differently and fell differently. Every society advanced on its
own. For example, the Incans grew much differently from the Roman Empire. There
are a lot of reasons that make all civilizations different, such as
demographics, the environment that they live in, or many others. Just as we
were reading in Conrad and Demarest this week, we see that these speculations
have a lot to do with the expansion of the empires and they make a huge
difference. I believe that in order to compare such empires, you must be very
careful because it may be a little confusing. It has the power to mislead and
it just seems a little dangerous.
I
also do not believe that Conrad and Demarest are using comparative history
because for the most part they just talk about each one separately (from my
understanding, at least). I feel as if there is certain points they make that
can be comparative but they never flat out say it. If they are comparative,
they’re being sneaky about it. I feel like they use information about each of
the empires in order to justify the rise and fall of the two. I think it’s hard
not to compare these two empires when they clearly both know a lot about both
empires, but in my perspective they keep both apart pretty well.
I completely agree with you in regards to comparing both empires and how that can cause some confusion due to the many complexities of both the Aztec and Inca empire. With that being said, however I do believe that both Conrad and Demarest have made a valid point in their argument that both empires rose quickly due to military explorations and fell due to their ideology (religious). From a comparative perspective it is very interesting analyzing both empires from this perspective as we can see something that was engulfed in Mesoamerican and Andean civilizations during the time of the Spanish conquest which was expansionism as a result of their ideology. Demarest and Conrad are also point out the fact that doing this work has become very difficult due to the lack of sources or at least credible sources. The Spanish relied on three sources to essentially describe and map out both civilizations "Spanish chronicles, official administrative records, and the works of native Americana and Andean. This fact adds credibility to your claim that it should not be comparable because alot of what we read is writing from the Spanish themselves who as seen on Restall have been known to distort the truth. However I will have to slightly disagree with you and say that comparing both empires from an analytically perspective can give us a broader understanding of the Americas before the Spanish Conquest.
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