PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - BENEDETTA ROSSI
TI  - Promises and Pitfalls of Global Comparisons
AID  - 10.3368/aeh.49.1.15
DP  - 2021 Nov 16
TA  - African Economic History
PG  - 15--46
VI  - 49
IP  - 1
4099  - https://aeh.uwpress.org/aeh.uwpress.org/content/49/1/15.short
4100  - https://aeh.uwpress.org/aeh.uwpress.org/content/49/1/15.full
SO  - Afr Eco His2021 Nov 16; 49
AB  - Taking cue from Paul Lovejoy’s criticism of the dichotomies of centralized and decentralized societies, and Slave Societies and Societies with Slaves, this article contextualizes Lovejoy’s arguments within broader debates on historical comparisons in global slavery studies. It examines a case of slave trade that involved negotiations between actors belonging to different political cultures in regions west of Lake Chad in the 1920s through 1940s. The article agrees with Lovejoy’s criticism of macro-historical dichotomies and argues in favor of comparative models that go from the specific to the general. It suggests that historians pay specific attention to vernacular ideas and embodied experience.