Scholars who work on a single locality, period, or institution usually have in mind some kind of comparative question, although the comparative dimension is often implicit rather than explicitly articulated.  Recently, formal comparative approaches have figured more prominently in economic history. These approaches take a variety of forms, from detailed qualitative studies of two or more cases to quantitative examinations of large numbers of countries. This conference seeks to provoke a dialog between the comparative and the specific by attracting a broad range of papers that