彼得·伯克，代表作有《歷史學與社會學理論（第2版）》等

Burke, Peter. 2016. “Comparative History and Comparative Sociology.” Serendipities: Journal for the Sociology and History of the Social Sciences 1 (1): 82–88.
 

Sociologists take the value of comparison forgranted, while many historians remain suspicious of it. When they do practice comparison, sociologists are bolder, happily moving across great distances in space and time, like Michael Mann, for example. Historians are much more cautious hence this paper, without my intending it, has turned into a comparative study itself.

接下來，本文大體可分為三個部分（原文有五個小節(jié)），第一部分探討了自十七世紀以來比較研究方法的興起，以及歷史學與社會學兩門學科對待比較研究的不同態(tài)度；第二部分探討了比較研究方法的優(yōu)點與缺點；第三部分為小結，伯克對比較研究如何克服西方中心主義缺點表達了他的觀點，并表達了他對于比較研究方法的態(tài)度。

一、比較研究：歷史學與社會學的不同態(tài)度

十七世紀四十年代，比較歷史研究方法被學者采用，對不同地區(qū)的反叛活動進行比較研究。十八世紀，孟德斯鳩將君主制與共和制視為兩種不同的政治與社會制度，進行比較分析。亞當·斯密則對他所說的'mercantile system’和自由貿(mào)易體系進行了比較研究。十九世紀早期，國家之間的比較歷史研究興起（如蘭克對奧斯曼帝國與西班牙帝國的研究；Joachim Lelewel對西班牙和波蘭的研究）。

但是，準確來說，比較研究作為一種嚴格意義上的新的研究方法始于自然科學，并向語言學、社會學、文學和歷史等人文社會擴展，約翰·密爾的法學研究，涂爾干的社會學研究、韋伯的歷史研究都是典型例子：

If one take the comparative method in a moreprecise sense, however, it was a new discovery beginning in the natural sciences ( comparative anatomy, for instance ) and spreading to linguistics, sociology and literature as well as to history. In Britain, John Stuart Mill produced a classic discussion of the comparative method. In France, it was advocated by Durkheim, and in Germany by Weber, who considered himself a historian but has been described by posterity as asociologist ( favourably by sociologists but pejoratively by some historians ).

二十世紀初，比較研究方法被Henri Pirenne、Marc Bloch等歷史學家賦予重要意義。在美國，Crane Brinton、Roger Merriman追隨Bisaccioni的腳步展開關于“革命”的比較研究。二十世紀中期，1958年Comparative Studies in Society and History雜志創(chuàng)刊時，比較研究方法已經(jīng)體系化了。

若把期刊刊載的論文進行一番分析，看一看有多少論文是社會學家寫的、多少是歷史學家寫的，有多少論文本身采取的就是比較研究方法、有多少是編輯對一系列主題相似論文的專題組稿（歷史學家VS社會學家），伯克認為這樣的“比較分析”也很有意思：

It would be interesting to carry out an analysis of the articles, to discover how many are written by sociologists and how many by historians, and also how many are genuinely comparative rather than mini-monographs that the editor juxt aposes to others on similar themes.

從這一時期開始，比較研究方法就被歷史社會學家廣泛運用，大家最熟知的，Barrington Moore（中譯本著作《專制與民主的社會起源》等）、Theda Skocpol（大家都聽過）、Jack Goldstone（中譯本著作《國家、政黨與社會運動》《早期現(xiàn)代世界的革命與反抗》等），這幾位主要研究的都是“革命”問題。還有Robert Bellah（中譯本著作《德川宗教》《背棄圣約》等）也采用了比較研究方法，沿著韋伯的研究路徑，研究日本的佛教和資本主義，而其他學者則對官僚主義和工業(yè)化過程進行了比較研究：

Since that time, the comparative method has been used regularly by historical sociologists, notably by three North Americans, Barrington Moore (1966), Theda Skocpol (1979) and Jack Goldstone (1991). Intriguingly, and in a repetition of the first use I cite here, all of them are concerned with revolution. Robert Bellah also uses this method, continuing Weber’s work with a study of Buddhism and capitalism in Japan, while other scholars have made comparative studies of bureaucracy and the process of industrialization.

然而，在歷史學領域，對比較研究方法的運用在Bloch和Pirenne之后則后繼乏人，原因嘛，當然在于歷史學家覺得這一研究方法too young, too simple, sometimes na?ve：

Many historians imagined comparison as a simple and doomed search for similarities and dismissed comparison, as some still do, with the phrase  'you can’t compare apples and oranges’ , an idea that irritated the Belgian classicist Marcel Détienne into writing his brilliant essay, Comparer l’incomparable (2000).

不過，伯克在這里也補了一句，最近也有所變化，一些歷史學家也在進行比較研究：

Recent British examples include three distinguished contributions. Another classicist, Geoffrey Lloyd, has written about the study of the natural world in ancient Greece and ancient China. The global historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto both compares and contrasts the histories of North and South America. Sir John Elliott, a scholar with a high reputation among both conservative and innovative historians, has long defended comparison and recently published a book about the British and Spanish Empires.

不過，歷史學著作大體上都包含著或多或少的比較意味，總體而言，歷史學傾向于對同一時期的不同地域、宗教或社會群體進行比較研究。但是這也存在問題，伯克以他自己的研究為例：

I had to face this problem in my essayon the patricians of Venice and Amsterdam in early modern times, since theapogee of the two groups occurred at different moments, that of the Venetiansin the 15th and 16th centuries and that of the Amsterdammers in the 17th century. I decided to study them over the same period, the 17th century, in order to see how the two groups, who were both involved in international trade, responded to the changing economic situation.

伯克認為，今天，對于不同時期的不同文化之間的比較研究需要歷史學家去進行。在比較研究中，存在著不同形式和層次的比較。通過比較研究，能夠發(fā)現(xiàn)研究對象的相似與相異之處，還能在相似中尋找差異，在差異中尋找相似或功能相等物（functional equivalents）。

并且，在比較研究中還可makes absences more visible，比如Werner Sombart的研究：為什么美國沒有社會主義？（Why is there no socialism in the United States?）以及其他一些研究：

To the example of Sombart we might add those of Durkheim’s follower Marcel Granet on the absence of notions of sin and law in China; Joseph Needham on the absence of a Scientific Revolution, again in China, leading to a great debate on the 'Needham question’ （李約瑟難題）; or Ross McKibbin’s essay, inspired by Sombart,  'Why was there no Marxism in GreatBritain?’

二、比較研究的優(yōu)點與缺點

筆鋒一轉，伯克突然問了這么一個基礎性問題：為什么要進行比較研究？比較研究的用處或優(yōu)點為何？伯克認為有兩點，第一，比較方法可以使研究擺脫狹隘視角與觀念立場，伯克引用了Elliott的話：

'Even imperfect comparisons can help to shake historians out of their provincialisms’.

比較研究能夠在特殊中發(fā)現(xiàn)普遍性，比如，近現(xiàn)代以來，不同類型的國家都有一個相似的趨勢，那就是民族主義文化建構：

As a recent study by the French historian Anne-Marie Thiesse points out, the process of the creation of national identities, with their stress on the unique qualities of each nation, is aprocess with many common features.

伯克還引用英國社會人類學家Jack Goody的分析，指出，比較研究有助于西方人擺脫西方中心主義觀念，擺脫collective narcissism的心態(tài)：

More generally, he（Jack Goody）has denounced what he calls the 'theft of history’, that is the description by western historians of humanism, individualism, capitalism, modernity and so on as if they were completely western discoveries or inventions, ignoring parallels in China, the Islamic world and elsewhere.

So the first argument in favour of comparison is a rather general one, that it discourages collective narcissism.

第二，比較方法有助于我們檢驗解釋（并且，如前文所述，通過比較，我們能夠注意到significant absences）：

Whenever we offer historical explanations of anything, we depend on implicit comparison.……As Goody puts it: “Comparison is one of the few things we can do in the historical and social sciences to parallel the kind of experiments the scientists do”.

說完比較方法的優(yōu)點，還得在說些比較方法的問題。首先，比較法創(chuàng)造了人為事實，在概念層面進行虛幻的比較。例如關聯(lián)史學派的批評（伯克認為批評有道理，但connected history與comparative history不是相互替代，而是互相補充的兩種研究方法）：

A recent critique comes from the supporters of connected history or histoire croisée especially, but note xclusively, in France. Their sharpest criticisms concern the creation of artificial entities such as Protestantism and capitalism, homogenizing what is, in fact, varied.

第二，比較研究容易忽視行為與制度的文化背景。例如，馬林諾夫斯基批評弗雷澤在《金枝》中忽視了文化語境，從而誤解了制度的功能和實踐的意義。

第三，比較使得歷史實踐變得靜態(tài)化，但是，歷史使一個發(fā)展過程，比較往往只是選擇了歷史的截面。

第四，各種**中心主義視角（西方中心主義、民族/種族中心主義等等），用自己有的來比較別人沒有的，例如韋伯的宗教與資本主義精神比較研究，容易不自覺陷入西方中心主義。Robert Bellah通過研究就指出，日本存在佛教資本主義精神：

However, as the American sociologist Robert Bellah has argued, a similar ethos may develop in different religions. Writing during the rise of Japanese capitalism in the 1950s, which Weber did notlive to see, Bellah claims that there was a Japanese Buddhist equivalent to the Protestant ethos.

三、小結

那么怎么克服西方中心主義這一問題呢？伯克認為，可以采取這樣一種原則，即the principle of rotation：把不同區(qū)域輪流作為比較的標準，這樣能夠幫助學者從西方以外的概念和視角反觀西方文化。

最后，伯克表達了他關于比較研究的看法：

To summarise, my basic argument is that comparison is risky, but that lack of comparison is even more dangerous. It is dangerous because it encourages us to take for granted ideas that need to be tested.

In short, a comparative approach helps historians to test their explanations and also to liberate themselves from current assumptions in their own culture, thus taking a few steps towards the polyphonic history that is needed in our increasingly multicultural age.