After Positivism: New Approaches to Comparison in Historical Sociology - Paperbackby Nicholas Hoover Wilson (Editor), Damon Mayrl (Editor) What is the value of comparison for research in historical sociology? Today, social scientists regularly express doubt about the positivist premises that have long justified comparison's use: that cases can be unproblematically compared as though they are independent of one another, that comparison can reliably yield valid causal inference, and that comparative methods can grapple with questions