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Historical comparative research, also called comparative historical research, is a method of social science that examines historical events in order to create explanations that are valid beyond a particular time and place, either by direct comparison to other historical events, theory building, or reference to the present day. Generally, it involves comparisons of social processes across times and places. It overlaps with historical sociology. While the disciplines of History and Sociology have always been connected, they have connected in different ways at different times (see Major Researchers below). This form of research may use any of several theoretical orientations. It is distinguished by the types of questions it asks, not the theoretical framework it employs (see Illustrations below).

Some commentators have identified three waves of historical comparative research. The first wave of historical comparative research concerned how societies came to be modern, i.e. based on individual and rational action, with exact definitions varying widely. Some of the major researchers in this mode were Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and W.E.B. DuBois. The second wave reacted to a perceived ahistorical body of theory and sought to show how social systems were not static, but developed over time. Notable authors of this wave include Barrington Moore, Jr., Theda Skocpol, Charles Tilly, Michael Mann, and Mark Gould. Some have placed the Annales school of Pierre Bourdieu in this general group, despite its stylistic differences. The current wave of historical comparative research sociology is often but not exclusively post-structural in its theoretical orientation. Influential current authors include Julia Adams, Anne Laura Stoler, Philip Gorski, and James Mahoney.

An Illustration. The comparative-historical method can be clarified with a recent and highly-regarded example. In The Familial State, Julia Adams draws on both original archival work and secondary sources to analyze how merchant families contested with noble families for influence in the early modern Dutch Republic. Adams argues that those contests produced the political institutions that became the modern Dutch state. She frequently makes reference to England and France, but the main topic is the Dutch Republic. Adams examines what earlier sociologists said about state formation in light of the Dutch case, finding there are decisive elements in the Dutch Republic, like patriarchal kinship structures in the ruling families, that aren't accounted for in the earlier theories. Adams draws on feminist theory, which was not originally intended to explain modern state formation, to create an expanded theory of how modern states came to be. This is an illustration of how comparative-historical analysis uses cases and theories together.