International audienceThe purpose of this article is to present the evolution of scientific work on human memory from the end of the 19th century. The work of experimental psychology and neuropsychology first dominated the scientific scene. Research in the humanities and social sciences was established in the interwar period, but without any real interaction with psychology and neurosciences. We recall the most emblematic historical works of two distinct visions of memory: those of the experimental psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus who measured memory, on himself, from lists of meaningless syllables, and those of the sociologist Maurice Halbwachs for whom any act of memory is a social act. This disciplinary closure persisted until the end of ...