Comparative history
Comparative history is the comparison between different societies at a given time or sharing similar cultural conditions. Leading scholars include American historians Barrington Moore and Herbert E. Bolton; British historians Arnold J. Toynbee and Geoffrey Barraclough; and German historian Oswald Spengler. Several sociologists have tried their hand, including Max Weber, Pitirim Sorokin, S. N. Eisenstadt, Seymour Martin Lipset, Charles Tilly, and Michael Mann.
Historians generally accept the comparison of particular institutions (slavery, agriculture, technology, banking, women's rights, ethnic identities) in different societies, but since the hostile reaction to Toynbee in the 1950s, generally do not pay much attention to sweeping comparative studies.