The force of comparison : a new perspective on modern European history and the contemporary world 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 Introduction: Concepts and practices of comparison in modern history Willibald Steinmetz Outlines of a historical epistemology of comparison : from Descartes to the early nineteenth century Michael Eggers Comparative practices and their implications : the case of comparative viewing Johannes Grave Above below better worse or simply different : metamorphoses of social comparison 1600 1900 Willibald Steinmetz Empowering comparisons : the making of republics in the early modern period Lars Behrisch Comparing Europe and the Americas : the dispute of the New World between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries Angelika Epple European colonial empires and Victorian imperial exceptionalism Alex Middleton Comparison and the welfare state in modern Europe c. 1880 1945 Julia Moses Comparison rivalry and competition under neoliberalism and state socialism David Priestland Comparing economic activities on a global level in the 1920s and 1930s : motives and consequences Martin Bemmann In search of a global centre of calculation : the Washington Statistical Conferences of 1947 Daniel Speich Chassé Formalized comparisons : rankings and status in higher education Wendy Espeland Good better best : comparisons and the power of ranking orders Bettina Heintz.