The comparative history of societies emerged as an important specialty among intellectuals in the Enlightenment in the 18th century, as typified by Montesquieu, Voltaire, Adam Smith, and others.
Sociologists and economists in the 19th century often explored comparative history, as exemplified by Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl Marx, and Max Weber.
[1] In the first half of the 20th century, a large reading public followed the comparative histories of (German) Oswald Spengler,[2] (Russian-American) Pitirim Sorokin,[3] and (British) Arnold J.
Several sociologists are also prominent in this field, including Barrington Moore, S. N. Eisenstadt,[6] Seymour Martin Lipset, Charles Tilly,[7] Stephen O. Murray, and Michael Mann.
It is premised on the idea that, following the rise of sustained European contact with the New World in the 16th century, the continents that bordered the Atlantic Ocean—the Americas, Europe, and Africa—constituted a regional system or common sphere of economic and cultural exchange that can be studied as a totality.
It encompasses a wide range of demographic, social, economic, political, legal, military, intellectual and religious topics treated in comparative fashion by looking at both sides of the Atlantic.
[22] Mordechai Zaken compared two non-Muslim minorities in Kurdistan, the Jews and the Assyrian Christians in their relationships with their Muslim rulers and tribal chieftains during the 19th and 20th centuries.