Comparative social history is still grappling with the problems raised in the debate about history's “cultural turn”. And while a new “social turn” seems imminent at the moment, this means a new departure into an actor-oriented analysis of institutions (including social movements and all forms of contentious politics) beyond the “cultural turn”, incorporating a host of compelling insights into the cultural constitution of social reality – and not a return to the old simplistic views of the “modernization era”.