Comparative history
The aim of comparative history is to achieve a better understanding of historical institutions or ideas by seeing how they differ between societies or across time. Thus a comparative study could be made of trade unions in different European countries at the same point in time, or of trade union development at different times in the same country. Difficulties lie in controlling the number of variables in such studies (at the same date two countries could be a vastly different levels of economic development), and in avoiding assuming a normal or ideal type to contrast other examples against. Marx's analysis of different types of society, Weber's of different systems and Toynbee's of civilisations are all examples of comparative history, and although these all-embracing approaches are no longer considered to have much validity, a more nuanced form of comparative history has become popular in recent years.
