This paper discusses, from the perspective of ergology, the concept of work. We place the definitions of it throughout history by different currents of thought and debate about the unprecedented nature, invisible and visible of labor. What it entails and what it allows us to infer in terms of collective and personal human investment. What it reveals in terms of continuity of ways of doing and what it omits in terms of knowledge invested. We seek to rework the notion of work, trying to explain the dilemmas evoked. Finally, we suggest how this review of the concept of work could also interrogate the historian's work.
ergology; work activity; history