The Uses of Comparative History in Macrosocial Inquiry

TLDR

Comparative history, a long‑standing method that juxtaposes patterns across times or places, has been used by scholars such as Tocqueville, Weber, Bloch, Bendix, and Moore to understand societal dynamics and epochal transformations. This paper investigates why scholars choose comparative approaches over single‑trajectory studies and what specific goals and mechanisms they pursue through comparative history.

Abstract

Comparative history is not new. As long as people have investigated social life, there has been recurrent fascination with juxtaposing historical patterns from two or more times or places. Part of the appeal comes from the general usefulness of looking at historical trajectories in order to study social change. Indeed, practitioners of comparative history from Alexis de Tocqueville and Max Weber to Marc Bloch, Reinhard Bendix, and Barrington Moore, Jr. have typically been concerned with understanding societal dynamics and epochal transformations of cultures and social structures. Attention to historical sequences is indispensable to such understanding. Obviously, though, not all investigations of social change use explicit juxtapositions of distinct histories. We may wonder, therefore: What motivates the use of comparisons as opposed to focussing on single historical trajectories? What purposes are pursued—and how—through the specific modalities of comparative history?