The aim of the paper is to analyse works by Gumilev and Huntington from the point of view of their approaches and terminologies. Both of them have attempted to give an overall explanation of new phenomena in world history. Though the terminology differs, their arguments are relatively similar. They propose a synthetic approach that looks at the whole of society and puts them among historians specializing in issues of civilization, a theory whose validity, together with the status they are given, is still very controversial at the present time. Analogies and differences are discernible first through their taxonomic system. Both authors also try to answer the question as to the eastern border of western civilization.