In Religion and Emipre Conrad and Demarest use a great deal of comparative history, most notably in reference to the ideologies. While this can be useful at times to pull greater understanding from their readers, it can also be misleading. For me this stands out most in the references to the deities. They often use the Greek / Roman gods as a starting platform, which would be far more useful if they gave their readers more information about these gods as there, are several different portrayals of these gods for people to refer to. The way it seems to be received in class was that, if Conrad and Demarest were right that, each god was separate and had only one facet. When dealing with the Inca and the Aztec this assumption was incorrect. One society had a singular god with multiple forms that were multifaceted while the other had multifaceted gods. Despite this, it would have still have been misleading but more helpful if Conrad and Demarest explained that the Greek / Roman gods were multifaceted and that the facets they held grew as time went on and other gods were left behind. So, while comparative history can be an excellent way to help your audience understands your information it helps if your audience actually knows what you are talking about. Also it works better when you better explain the differences between you references and the material you are actually discussing. Overall, this makes comparative history more hurtful than helpful in this example of use.
I agree that there should be more background information if a historian is going to use comparative history. Then again, if a historian uses a comparison and starts explaining background information, the new information could get too convoluted with the whole point of the work.
ReplyDeleteI like your point about the Greek/Roman Pantheon. While the similarities with the Mesoamerican and Inca pantheon is that there were numerous deities, that's about where it stops. The biggest difference there, which you pointed out, is that the Greek/Roman gods usually embody one or two aspects, while the Mesoamerican and Inca gods can be almost anything.
I would say that comparative history can be helpful, but the author has to be really careful about who their audience is and what they use to compare.