Week 6 Illuminating History/Comparative History

Such comparisons to other empires can be beneficial depending on the research at hand.  If one was purely looking at how advanced each civilization became at a period of time it would fit, but factors such as geography and ideology play into how it could be a downfall.  In Conrad and Demarest’s case I believe that it is not illuminating because the Aztec and Inca Empires are on the opposite side of the world and have very different geographic environments than other empires such as the Egyptian, for example.  They lived in an opposite climate from the Latin American Empires.  While they both became superpowers for their time, they are worlds apart and never came in contact with the Aztec and Inca’s.  Although it seems like the Empires had many similarities it is not just to put them in the same category together.  As human knowledge advances, thinking becomes the same and those similarities could just be mere coincidences due to how common growth patterns are for societies.  I think that comparing the Aztec and Inca Empires with others can confuse not just historians but individuals and can mislead or contribute to misconstrued information. 

            I do not believe that Conrad and Demarest are engaging in comparative history.  They seem to be going back and forth debunking certain information that has been disproved in some way by other scholars.  They are using information from others to try to justify what caused the Inca and Aztec rise and demise.  They show that each has similarities such as their religious ideologies, but in my opinion, they are using their differences, like the background behind the Empire’s quest for land, to further prove that they were two separate entities with many de-habilitating factors.  Jamie explained the meaning behind my thinking perfectly with the fact that the Aztec’s sought out expansion for religious ideologies and the Inca’s expanded for wealth and land due to split inheritance and the mummies control.  The Inca’s merely used religion as a stepping-stone, but it was not their main factor in expanding.