The Force of Comparison : : A New Perspective on Modern European History and the Contemporary World / / Willibald Steinmetz.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Berghahn Books Complete eBook-Package 2019
• VerfasserIn: Steinmetz, Willibald,
• MitwirkendeR: Behrisch, Lars,; Bemmann, Martin,; Chassé, Daniel Speich,; Eggers, Michael,; Epple, Angelika,; Espeland, Wendy,; Grave, Johannes,; Heintz, Bettina,; Middleton, Alex,; Moses, Julia,; Priestland, David,; Steinmetz, Willibald,
• Place / Publishing House: New York; , Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2019]; ©2019
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Series: New German Historical Perspectives ; 11
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (354 p.)

In an era defined by daily polls, institutional rankings, and other forms of social quantification, it can be easy to forget that comparison has a long historical lineage. Presenting a range of multidisciplinary perspectives, this volume investigates the concepts and practices of comparison from the early modern period to the present. Each chapter demonstrates how comparison has helped to drive the seemingly irresistible dynamism of the modern world, exploring how comparatively minded assessors determine their units of analysis, the criteria they select or ignore, and just who it is that makes use of these comparisons—and to what ends.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Figures and Tables -- Introduction: Concepts and Practices of Comparison in Modern History -- 1 Outlines of a Historical Epistemology of Comparison: From Descartes to the Early Nineteenth Century -- 2 Comparative Practices and Their Implications: The Case of Comparative Viewing -- 3 Above/Below, Better/Worse or Simply Different? Metamorphoses of Social Comparison, 1600–1900 -- 4 Empowering Comparisons? The Making of Republics in the Early Modern Period -- 5 Comparing Europe and the Americas: The Dispute of the New World between the Sixteenth and Nineteenth Centuries -- 6 European Colonial Empires and Victorian Imperial Exceptionalism -- 7 Comparison and the Welfare State in Modern Europe, c. 1880–1945 -- 8 Comparison, Rivalry and Competition under Neoliberalism and State Socialism -- 9 Comparing Economic Activities on a Global Level in the 1920s and 1930s Motives and Consequences -- 10 In Search of a Global Centre of Calculation: The Washington Statistical Conferences of 1947 -- 11 Formalized Comparisons: Rankings and Status in Higher Education -- 12 Good – Better – Best: Comparisons and the Power of Ranking Orders -- Index