Montesquieu

About Montesquieu

Montesquieu, born Charles-Louis de Secondat, was an Enlightenment philosopher whose enduring influence secured him the #229 rank in historical importance according to the MIT Pantheon project. His most significant work, The Spirit of the Laws (1748), fundamentally shaped modern political thought by arguing for the separation of governmental powers into executive, legislative, and judicial branches. This conceptual framework was directly adopted by the architects of the United States Constitution, cementing his legacy in democratic governance.

Despite this monumental historical contribution, Montesquieu's modern internet attention appears relatively muted when measured against his importance. He accrued approximately 347K annualized Wikipedia pageviews in 2025. For comparison, this is significantly less attention than the philosopher Hannah Arendt (#818 importance) received, who garnered 985K views in the same year. This results in Montesquieu having an Attention Gap of approximately 1x, indicating his modern digital visibility is closely aligned with his relative historical standing, though less dominant than some other thinkers. The data suggests a slight, though steady, decline in contemporary curiosity, with his pageviews dropping by 3.9% year-over-year, balanced by a small +2% momentum gain between Q1 and Q3 of 2025.