Toynbee treats civilisations, rather than individual nations, as the principal units for understanding large-scale history. He compares societies across different periods and regions, asking why some emerge and develop while others stagnate or disintegrate. Central to his account is the idea of “challenge and response”: civilisations advance when creative minorities find successful answers to difficult circumstances and inspire wider society to follow them.

As civilisations break down, Toynbee describes divisions between dominant minorities, internal and external proletariats, followed in some cases by universal states and universal churches. Later parts examine encounters between civilisations, the transmission of cultures across time, the role of higher religions and the prospects of Western civilisation. Throughout the work, Toynbee combines extensive historical comparison with philosophical and religious interpretation. Its ambitious attempt to identify recurring patterns across world history attracted a wide readership but also substantial criticism from historians who questioned its generalisations, analogies and treatment of historical evidence.