Essor et enjeux de l’histoire du temps présent au CNRS

Growth and Stakes of Contemporary History at CNRS The emergence of contemporary history pertains to the « historiographic watershed » that has marked the last 30 years. It made a clean break with the French historiographic tradition, including those parts of the tradition that had dealt with the most recent periods. It accomplished this by rooting itself in a system of epistemological thought that fully takes into account the true nature of the « historiographic process » and thinks of history as a link between the past and the present. Recognized and established today, contemporary history is involved in new debates that no longer discuss the possibility of studying the present but the nature of the present that is ours as well as the consequences of the social role that contemporary historians now occupy