This article reflects on relations between historians and their own time. The text analyses these relationships as subject (some historians studying their own time) and as indirect allusions (some historians studying different periods and use contemporary technical and theoretical means). The paper also discusses how important of the education for these studies. The experience of the dictatorship in Brazil (1964/1984) and the democratic efforts of the country (1985 to present day) in Brazil are the main historical processes evoked in the discussion.