The article analyzes the philosophy of world history by one of the leading representatives of European thought of the XX century A. Toynbee. The reason for addressing the seemingly sufficiently studied work was, in the author’s opinion, not entirely justified assignment of the British thinker to the supporters of the idea of local cultures. It is even more obvious that A. Toynbee himself strongly criticized the views of O. Spengler, stating that local cultures are milestones of time, but not islets shut in history. The author shows that the British thinker prefers compromises combining the strengths of the existing philosophical and historical concepts (universal history, local cultures historical parallelism). This intention is found in his concept of history as a discrete integrity, and in deciding on the boundaries and direction of history. However, this attempt of synthesis is not always successful and often looks electrical. The article is addressed to specialists and to all who are interested in the problems of philosophy of history.