The writing of history in European perspective and writing history in a comparative perspective are naturally linked undertakings. Recent histories of Europe utilize implicit and explicit comparative methods, and authors promoting comparative approach in their histories often also integrate European dimensions into their writings. Hartmut Kaelble, for example, is among the leading historians, who currently work on both the European and comparative dimensions. Nearly all recently published histories of Europe use elements of international comparison. Lutz Raphael, a historian at the University of Trier, for example, refers in his analysis of the images of administration and administrative practices in 19th century Europe to the French revolution under Napoleon, English self-government, military states in the center of Europe and the bureaucratic aristocracy in tsarist Russia. These comparisons help him not only to find a broader empirical basis for reflection but also to identify common partners of evolution inside and across Europe.^[1] Histories of Europe contain not only only synchronic, but also diachronic comparisons. In his influential work Europe and its nations, Krzysztof Pomian stresses the development of European unity in three conditions, during medieval times through the influence of the Catholic church, during the 17th and 18th centuries through the development of the ”Republique des letters,” and also through political Europe which has been developing since 1949. His strengthens his argument and convictions using comparisons of these three different periods.^[2] Another author, Hagen Schulze, writes about the acceptance of mechanisms and conventions accepted by the states in their international relations in the 19th century as the main identifying factor for belonging to Europe. In doing this, he compares the different European states and whether their governments agreed on these common principles. In his perspective, Russia would not be part of Europe as it is understood by Schulze.^[3]
The fathers of historical comparative methods argued themselves for a European context. When the Belgian historian, Henri Pirenne, spoke out in favor of historical comparison during the International Congress of the Historians in 1924, he refereed to the First World War which – in his view – was characterized by the predominance of nationalist thinking and historical arguments that had disrupted the founding of a European consciousness. Comparison was seen as a remedy to restore European values and to limit the allegiance to nationalist concepts.^[4] For Marc Bloch, the comparison between those societies which were linked by a long history and important contacts should help to diminish political tensions and nationally restricted perspectives. In his speech at the International Congress of Historians at Oslo, four years after Pirenne, Bloch defines “une histoire comparée des sociétés européennes”.^[5] As for Bloch as well as for Max Weber, Europe was an important reference for examining they overseas societies, especially in Asia, in order to determine the specificity of Europe\s historical evolutions. Bloch used this comparison in his analysis of European feudalism, Weber in his diagnosis of European modernity. Some scholars have argued that they did use conditions outside Europe only as an instrument for their eurocentric enterprises and denied non-European regions in this sense the right to indigenous evolution.^[6]
The supposition that historical comparison is important in making evident the analytical procedures processes, structures or attitudes that are assumed to be “European” can be supported by strong arguments. Comparison allows the analyzing of two or more special cases, whether they are similar or different in certain prospectives and/or what is the scope of theoretical arguments, that are applied to historical case-studies situated in different local, regional or national frameworks.^[7] The aim of the comparative method is not to take into account historical phenomenon, but to situate these phenomenon inside broader analytical and theoretical frameworks and to determine their specificity. Historical comparison is in this sense a construction. It stops historical narration, utilizes systematic approaches, and reduces the variety of historical phenomena, in some cases even in a reductionist manner. Historical comparison brings in analytical sharpness what it forfeits in empirical variety. Compared to the great synthesis of European history, which generally do not clearly state their methodological premises, explicitly comparative tracts have undeniable advantages, indicating clearly the choice of cases, the underlying logic of comparison and the hypothesis of the argument.
Even those important, often cited synthesis of European history written by eminent historians present their findings and main theses as scientific common sense without usually indicating their criteria, methods of selection, and underlying hypotheses. These characteristics might be found in most of recent general Europe histories as well as in Eric Hobsbawm’s impressive synthesis of 19th and 20th century Europe. Comparative history not only differs from these syntheses, but might help these general works to reflect on their argument, the methods they use, and the bias of literature and sources they employ – making them methodologically more ambitious.
The importance of historical comparison was discovered by one of the leading French historians of the 20th century, Fernand Braudel. Braudel was by far the most productive in historical synthesis. In the introduction to his last synthesizing work L’identité de la France, Braudel insisted on incorporating different dimensions in his analysis in terms of time and space, which allowed him – as he said – “to make necessary comparisons and some sort of experiments, I will say experiments which are following a previous plan which I can begin at every time by the beginning, if I vary the elements used in it”. He continues, “Looking back on its history, France appears as some kind of laboratory for experiments, for comparisons ‘between spaces and con junctures’ which allow us to ...determine continuities, tendencies rules-I do not say laws-, repetitions which will make this grounded history a way of retrospective sociology... To realize this connection between the two disciplines, there is only one way, comparative history, an historiography which is looking for similarities – the condition of each social sciences”.^[8] Braudel’s apology of historical comparison is as limited in scope as it is metaphorical and engaging. Comparison not only helps reveal similarities, but also differences. In most previous historiography, comparison has often been used to describe differences between nations and nation-states. Even if this search for national particulars or the uniqueness of national paths of evolution (Sonderwege) has been recently treated to increased criticism and is less predominant in current historical comparisons, it has been a strong incentive for the use of historical comparisons in the past. Braudel in his synthesis of French history does not escape at this attraction.

COMPARISON USING A GIVEN “EUROPEAN SPACE”

If the point of a work is to stress certain common European features despite the variety of national, regional and local varieties to be found in Europe, these common features can be the product of either supposed European values or can be revealed through an empirical procedure involving European/non-European comparisons. As the great number of works dedicted to the European idea are demonstrate, essentialist definitions of what is Europe are seductive.^[9] But they are in some respects arbitrary and not very often the result of scientific analysis. Attempts, for example, to identify Europe within the heritage of Rome or within the Christian Occident are characterized by approaches that homogenize historically existent variety.^[10] It might be interesting for a history of ideas to study the different frameworks in which these definitions of Europe are used and whether they served goals of political and cultural inclusion or of exclusion. But such claimed values are not normally the result of scientific study and are restricted in their potential to explain the historical evolution of Europe.
Studies trying to determine common European features using systematic comparison often encounter substantial methodological problems because the space in which the studies are set is so problematic. Roughly, one may distinguish between those studies which utilize a conventional understanding of the European space from those which consider the European space a result and continuous problem of European history. The conventional perspective usually supposes that Europe is delimitated by the Atlantic and the Ural, Gibraltar and the North Sea. Accordingly, these studies concentrate on certain periods, on certain processes, and on certain structures of transnational and European importance that occurred within this European space.^[11] This definition has its clear limits for historical studies. For one, empirical studies necessary for conducting comparisons are still lacking for many important parts and problems of this supposed European space. If one tries, for instance, to study for 19th century Europe as a space of consumption, there is a complete lack of studies for certain time periods in order to integrate them in a comparative study.^[12] Even for more conventional fields of historical research, like state-building or the development of educational systems, the importance of studies vary from one country to an other and the historical knowledge available differs drastically. To this situation one may add that national historiographies themselves differ as to the questions and problems that they consider of primary importance. It may be that some data are not considered or some problems are developed in more details than others. This heterogeneity makes comparative work using secondary literature very difficult.
One way to avoid this dependence on the historiographical situation has been to promote quantitative studies which should help to determine European processes and structures.^[13] But this procedure has been proven to have its limits as well. National statistics are not complete and often use different methods for observation and counting. As Niklas Luhmann has stressed, the practice of the observer needs to be taken in to close account by scientists. In this perspective, the interests driving scientific analyses and statistics needs to be understood and taken into account by broad international discussions.^[14] Finally, historians have finite linguistic competencies and these limit the areas that can be successfully used for comparison. It is not surprising that most quantitative and other historical studies that date back to the 19th century exclude large parts of Europe, usually Central and Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, or Ireland. Western and, to a lesser degree, Southern Europe become my default the areas most frequently studied^[15] Even those English or French language studies that examine these “other” parts of Europe need to be wary of the normative or methodological biases that can result from an uncritical reception of the literature of a foreign country. Comparative history should always be accompanied by a critical analysis of the historiography of the societies which are being compared.
The careful organization of comparison is necessary because the value of the comparative history depends on its success in framing historically factors and events. The results of historical comparison are convincing if the historical writing and research accompanying it succeed in putting events and structures in their context.^[16] A comparison which tries to integrate data from all European societies looses a good deal in explanatory strength because it does not take into account the origin of the statistical data nor their specific meaning and results in the local context. It is not surprising that comparative statistical studies which use more than two or three cases are frequently the work of historical sociologists, who accept more easily than historians the analysis of broader formal structures.
Historical comparison rarely aims at integrating all European societies. Its value increases with the detailed development of the specific framework and it therefore tends to concentrate on a limited number of comparative case studies dealing with relevant processes and structures. Historical comparison, for example, would analyze different types of agrarian societies starting with the Russian mir, the agrarian-industrial pluriacitivity and the latifundia, and try to define them as structurally important features in Europe at a certain time without pretending to deal with all possible forms of agrarian-agricultural settlements. If one utilizes comparison as a way to write European history, it may have a more limited appeal than instructive case studies which should be determined in their specific scope and value. At least two promising examples should be mentioned here. In his comparison of the social situation and the movement of workers from the mining industry in Northern France, Northern Belgium, the Ruhr, and Middle England, Joel Michel has given up the nation state as the adequate space of comparison. He points to a geographic area united by similar economic conjunctures, social structures and processes in which the history of Western Europe’s mining industry and labor movement might be explained.^[17] In his analysis of the basins industries in Europe, René Leboutte is using an even larger geographical framework. He studies the industrial centers from Austria to Silesia in order to determine the divergent conditions under which industrial production took place.^[18]

COMPARISON OF DISCOURSES AND THE HISTORY OF IDEAS

For historical comparative purposes, it makes sense for Europe to be considered in a space with fits the purpose of the study, not necessarily within its pre-supposed geographical space. Comparison between different processes choosing borders is possible. This kind of history can be written either as a history of ideas, as political history, or as a history of sciences. In terms of the histories of ideas, the main questions include which authors defined Europe over time and which areas they excluded; which science (geography, history, anthropology, ethnology etc.) participated in this defining of borders; and which concepts, metaphors and terms were used. In this perspective, Europea loses any stable physiognomy and becomes part of a descriptive mechanism which can vary depending on the author’s interests, his intellectual positions, his and specific historical period. In this sense, there is no longer one Europe, but many different concepts of Europe which might be deconstructed and interpreted in relation to the authors and their interests and strategies. The history of Europe becomes more dynamic as the borders vary to the south and east.^[19]
In this context, it might also be interesting to determine the aims for which “Europe” may be used or which movements expect to gain an advantage by exploiting an understanding of “Europe”. The movements laying claim to a European interest were not always or only of democratic or liberal nature. Authors who are committed to the goals of the European unification tend to also stress links between European values and emancipation movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. But they are overlooking the fact that fascists also used a certain concept of Europe in order to legitimate their territorial expansion. Views that used European concepts to claim Europe a certain mission in the world are evident during various historical periods. It is significant, even constitutive, for the political culture of a given time whether or not Europe was discursively constituted in reference to imperialist, racist, political, cultural or scientific values. All these studies should integrate the different discourses of an author in the framework of his work and in the history of the literary genre he used. They should also be aware of the problem whether referring to Europe as part of a broader societal, primarily political discourse and develops into a political program or whether reference to European concepts appears at diffuse moments and by different authors without having any significant relationship between each other.^[20] This difference in intensity and cohesion between different voices is important.
Various studies on “Europe” as a political discourse and argument are developing in a context in which the process of European integration slowed down, lost some dynamic and encountered multiple forms of resistance from the nation-states. In this context, those studies may even have a compensatory function. They are stressing the importance of Europe in the framework of ideas, representations and arguments and may help to forget the difficulty and contradictory nature of the political, societal and cultural realization of European Union. The new interest in representations of the European space, so-called “mental maps,” profits from this context. Even if a European unification in crisis sets the background, these studies studies contribute to maintain the interest in Europe and to reinforce – one may suggest – the plausibility of European arguments in the present in talking about authors, movements and periodicals which sustained the European idea in the past.
But the positive or negative cultural or political labeling of different societies and regions inside Europe may be seen as one obstacle on the way to a Europe of equal members and should also be analyzed among those factors which legitimated imperialism, annexation, hostilities and alliances. A cultural study of such labeling faces the difficulty of demonstrating their reception and effects in local, regional or national frameworks. They may succeed in showing how different visions of the European space are accepted and promoted by geographers, historians, journalists and travelers. But such a study could not easily demonstrate when and how inter-national labeling reflects popular mentalities and visions of the world.^[21] Considerable theoretical reflection and empirical research is necessary in the study of reception by target and non-target audiences.
Comparison is one tool which has been used to construct European frames of reference. The World’s Fairs of the 19th and 20th centuries facilitated comparisons with other parts of the world in order to demonstrate a specific European identity. In colonial expositions, people from Africa and South America were brutally represented as the “other” and as inferior to the “white men”.^[22] Comparison is part of the construction of European unity not only practice, but also in the writing of history. Alexander Gerschenkron has argued that the relative backwardness of different economies of continental Europe compared to Great Britain constitutes a main feature of European industrialization. Edward Said has pointed out how the image of the other, of the non-European has been used as part of European self-awareness, self-armament and self-description.^[23]
The Spanish historian Josep Fontana has tried to show that European universality has been realized by exploiting other continents and people, and that this superiority is less an expression of European strength than of European weakness.^[24] He argues that ignorance and brutality were used by Europeans in drawing borders between them and the barbarians, the savage, the primitives, the poor and the laboring people. In this process of exclusion, Europe found – as Fontana pretends – a certain unity and cohesion as well as the legitimization to conquer, submit and exploit non-Europeans. The Euro-critical impetus of this book was certainly one reason why it was not reviewed very often, although it has been published as part of a very prominent series. But even if one sympathizes with Fontana’s argument, one cannot deny analytical deficiencies of his argument. Fontana either does not or insufficiently discusses how important and influential were the groups of writers, politicians, and travelers who promoted discursive inclusion or exclusion. He constructs a unified group of those who excluded the others, whose social, cultural, and economic origins remain unexplored. Fontana insists that the jist of their arguments and their discursive exclusion were the same and always directed against the laboring poor in different periods. He neglects, however, to take a comparative approach which might have helped to determine the specificity of exclusive arguments and groups in comparing the exclusion discourse over time.

INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON: ONE PATH TO A HISTORY OF EUROPE

The use of international comparative history may have advantages in writing European history. They replace grand historical synthesis, whose limitations have been demonstrated by the stronger methodological self-awareness of comparative approaches. The argument often heard that comparative methods are limited to the nation-state and comparison even reifies the nation, could not be denied during the dawn of modern historical comparison in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Indeed the search for a German Sonderweg was an important driving force behind comparative work. But in the last 15 years, other units of comparison have been introduced, including villages, towns, regions, classes, professions, milieu etc. Comparison is no longer restricted to the master narratives of modernization and to the methods of social and economic history. Even the construction of images of Europe, political references to European values, and definitions of Europe’s borders may be analyzed by comparative methods if one wants to determine the different actors, media, interests and effects of these constructions.
It nonetheless remains true that an extraordinarily large amount of work remains to be done on the path towards a history of Europe paved of comparative studies. The task is certainly beyond an individual researcher, especially given the degree of specialization needed. Furthermore, comparative studies are missing in a number of different fields that could help to expand beyond a study of western European reality. These missing links of comparative research can be considered as the result of specific historiographic traditions and conditions. In a general manner, national historiography appears to resist comparative history if national paradigms are predominant, if they refuse social science theories and a theoretical approach to history, and if they privilege narrative historical writing. Not only specific historiographies, but also some trends inside historiography are not inclined towards comparison. It seems as if the trends contesting the established methods of historical research – for instance microhistory, gender history, history of concepts and cultural history – experiment first in the national framework before they expose themselves to international comparison.^[25]
Given this situation, studies which are the result of the differential diffusion of the comparative method will always be missing. One way to proceed may be to concentrate European history on certain systematic approaches – elite organization, town planning and administration, use and legitimacy of violence, consumption patterns and habitudes for instance – which do not aim to cover all European countries but compare different societies, different constellations of actors, and different actions and ideas in order to determine their specific origin, their reasons, and their effects. It might be useful afterwards to expose the results of these limited studies to other comparisons in order to establish something like a network of comparative studies which may eventually cover the whole of Europe.
The writing of a history of Europe cannot rely only on comparative methods, but must also benefit from critics who have turned against international comparison – transnational history and the history of cross-cultural transfer. Authors who prefer to analyze cultural transfers advance two arguments. Already at the end of the 19th century, the ethnologue Galton formulated the problem whether two different units of research could be considered as independent or whether they are united by relations and dependencies. If the relationship in question was intensive, then a comparison may not be proper, but instead the linkages between the two phenomena need to be analyzed.^[26] Similarly, postcolonial studies have questioned the homogeneity of the nation-states. They tried to demonstrate that even cultures which insist on their universal and hegemonic character, such as French culture, are formed and characterized by multiple relations of import and exchange. These relations contributed - as it has been said - mainly to the hybrid character of culture and society.^[27] Historians defending transfer history criticize comparative history because the latter gives too much importance to national frameworks and is biased to determine as national difference that which is already inherent in the national self-definition or in definitions given by others.^[28] This criticism may be correct for older comparative studies, which concentrated on particular national paths of development in the framework of modernization theory. But it does not take into account new reflections, practices, and units of comparisons as has previously been mentioned. The histoire croisée takes into account some of the criticisms developed by the historians of cross-cultural transfer, but has its own specificity.^[29] It insists on the necessary reflection of the norms and methods of those who analyze and on the study of entanglements, the “jeu des échelles”(Jacques Revel).
Both approaches may be used with advantages in a comparative European history. The question of historical transfer – which mediators are promoting what ideas when and by which means inside Europe – can bring great profit to the history of such different movements as the Enlightenment, medical hygienic discourses, socialism or Americanization.^[30] With this approach it is possible to distinguish between center and the more receptive periphery, but also to give weight to the appropriation of ideas and values by the center and the periphery. Such methods could be used to analyze also the different constellations of interest, the effects of media and the physiognomy of their users and the specific ways of diffusion of books and brochures, translations and pamphlets, images and caricatures. The history of ideas may find here its institutional and social framing. The history of influence will be enlarged to a history of communication.^[31] For the history of Europe, this approach may help to determine the limits and media of diffusion of ideas and to determine at any given moment which territory is part of a European relationship. One might also add that this vision privileges those social groups which are leaving parochial conditions and which are engaged in the diffusion of European ideas and books.
As the history of transfer, the l’histoire croisée has added a new field of comparison without replacing comparative methods. It points to a study of entanglement. One of the main tasks of historical comparison is to determine the degree of social and economic globalization, nation-building, and regionalization for different societies as well as the construction of local life and specificities. In all these areas, the agents, the medias, and the scope of the construction used have to be recognized. Such research may add to historical knowledge. Sometimes they will complete existing studies, such as those on the pocesses of nationalization, regionalisation and localization that have been studied over the last 15 years and after the constructivist turn of the study of nationalism. They have been discussed in their relationship as well as in their own logic and often haven been studied in comparison.^[32] The self-definition and “other”-definition may be combined and might be considered as an important field also for the future of the comparative agenda.
Transnational history has recently gained new proponents. If one takes the definition given by David Thelen, the task of the transnational historian consists in discovering what men, ideas, institutions and cultures know about themselves both within and without of the contexts of their own societies.^[33] In contrast to comparative methods, which increasingly distance themselves from the nation-state, the nation remains at the center of transnational research. It aims to discover which relations to the outside world are due to a nation-state’s particular physiognomy in different fields. This approach draws a number of conclusions from the ongoing process of globalization on labor and finance markets.^[34] Europe has been considered not only within the context of international relations, but also as the starting point of international movements like the internationalization of the labor and communist movements. This approach is not so much pointing to these experiences, but more to certain segments of a society, to particular problems and milieus.
Migration might be of special importance for a history of Europe because they link the country of origin with the destination country and examine telling social processes, such as integration and exclusion.^[35] In this history, one could integrate migration experience as transnational and/or as a European experience, as the following examples will illuminate. The aristocratic “Grand Tour” who, especially during the 18th century, visited places of historical and intellectual interest as well as social prestige throughout Europe figure importantly in history. Were these trips part of transnational experiences comparable to the the migrations of journeymen who transgressed boarders or the voyages of merchant?. The travels of intellectuals and students can be cited among the experiences in which they witness institutions outside of the national context they grew up in as well as foreign ways of life and culture. Are certain towns, harbors, metropols or centers of commerce, specific places like the coffee house, the theater and the opera or institutions like expositions, congresses or Lager central for transnational experiences?^[36] In all of these occasions and places, transnational experiences were gained that were not necessarily European in nature. Confrontation with new countries could lead some to prefer their own nationality, to remember the region or the town they were coming from. Those thinking in terms of transnational relations could also express their ideas without using European discourses. There is a certain tension between the transnational and the European. Despite these restrictions, migration studies and the study of migrants is surely one of the most interesting current fields for European history because it helps to determine the ways, goals, spaces and interests of the migrants themselves. The European space and diversity which they experienced depended upon the social category they were part of, the nature of their migration and the peculiarity of the time period in which they migrated. Europe’s experience in this regard was not only specific, but nearly always partial and limited – a fact realized even for those who wish to draw generalizations.
Methods of international comparison, as well as criticism of it, may suggest different ways to approach the historiography of Europe’s evolution. They may introduce new questions, problematize current methods, and develop new fields of research. At the present moment, the aim should be to contribute to the eventual writing of a history of Europe using comparative methods, but recognize that such a project must wait until the moment when there are enough internationally comparative studies available.^[37]