The paper gives a review of the emergence and the evolution of the Ural School of Historians which was formed on the basis of the Institute of History and Archeology of the Ural Branch of RAS. In the early years (1988-1999) its research focused mainly on the history of traditional segments of economy and culture of the region, the demographic processes, the region-specific and other issues. Its main goal was the overcoming of obsolete conceptual approaches and transition to a higher level of abstraction in the analysis of historical material. At the next stage (2000-2012) the theoretical issues of historical process, the understanding of the Russian history from the perspectives of civilizational specifics of the Russian modernizations gained priority. The research agenda covered the factor analysis, the mathematical modeling of social transformations, the correlation between innovation and traditions. During that period a number of fundamental research papers were published, as well as over 300 monographs in the Russian and international academic press. The school’s publications offer an opportunity for both the theoretical and the factual understanding of the Russian national and regional history.