A Global History Fails the Moment Comparison Becomes Careless.

The difficult part of writing DEMONS: A Global and Interdisciplinary History is not collecting frightening figures. It is refusing to flatten different religions, eras, languages and social crises into one convenient monster.

An archive-first method asks four questions before comparison: Who recorded the belief? When? For which audience? What human problem was the figure being asked to explain or control?

What makes a broad cultural history trustworthy to you?

The archive is the real subject: the recorder’s choices, the institution’s labels and the distance between a living tradition and a later interpretation. Comparison earns trust only when context survives it.

Artifacts are symbolic and non-specific; no single object represents an entire culture.