A second major context that operates constantly in world history is comparison, efforts to identify similarities and differences in the experience of the world’s peoples. In what respects did European empires in the Americas differ from the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East or the Russian Empire across northern Asia or Chinese expansion into Central Asia? Why did the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions and a modern way of life evolve first in Western Europe rather than somewhere else? What distinguished the French, Haitian, Russian, and Chinese revolutions? How might we compare the modern transformation of capitalist, communist, and colonial societies? Did feminist movements in the developing countries resemble those of the industrial West? Describing and, if possible, explaining such similarities and differences are among the major tasks of world history.

Comparison has proven an effective tool in countering Eurocentrism, the notion that Europeans or people of European descent have long been the primary movers and shakers of the historical process. That notion arose in recent centuries when Europeans were in fact the major source of innovation in the world and did in fact exercise something close to world domination. But this temporary preeminence decisively shaped the way Europeans thought and wrote about their own histories and those of other people. In their own eyes, Europeans alone were progressive people, thanks to a cultural or racial superiority. Everyone else was to some degree stagnant, backward, savage, or barbarian. The unusual power of Europeans allowed them for a time to act on those beliefs and to convey such ways of thinking to much of the world. But comparative world history sets European achievements in a global and historical context, helping us to sort out what was distinctive about its development and what similarities it bore to other major regions of the world. Puncturing the pretensions of Eurocentrism has been high on the agenda of world history.

The art of comparison is a learned skill, entailing several steps. It requires, first of all, asking explicitly comparative questions and determining what particular cases will be involved. If you want to compare revolutions, for example, you would need to decide which ones you are considering—American, French, Russian, Chinese, Cuban. Defining categories of comparison is a further step. Precisely which characteristics of those revolutions will you compare—their origins, their ideologies, the social classes involved, their outcomes? Finally, how will you present your comparison? You might choose a case-by-case analysis in which you would describe, say, the American Revolution first, followed by an account of the Cuban Revolution, which makes explicit comparisons with the former. Or you might choose a thematic approach in which you would consider first the origins of both revolutions, followed by a comparison of their ideologies, and so on. You will find examples of both approaches in the chapters that follow.