Abstract
This essay proposes a reflection on different approaches of the uses of the past through two distinct episodes: the controversy involving the Catalan historian, Enric Marco Battle, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, in Spain; and the public intervention of the Brazilian historian, Marco Antonio Villa, on civil-military dictatorship, in Brazil. We discuss issues related to the contemporary historical culture, above all, to the study of traumatic past, including the testimony, the truth and truthiness of historical narratives, the uses and abuses of the past. The argument focuses on the idea that, beyond the issues of epistemological order, the subject of public uses of the history has led historians to think on their own practice, considering the social function and its political consequences. Therefore, the narratives and interpretations of the past can be located in a frontier zone, whose limits are not fully perceptible, between the forger's labor and the historian's craft.
Keywords:
Enric Marco Battle; Marco Antonio Villa; the uses of the past