The first decades of the 21st century have showed us with unusual harshness the futility of the advanced prophecies about the “end of history”. We rather have a present full of new, and not so new, challenges, social movements, conflicts, crisis and ideas that reclaim an in depth analysis of the historical perspective. With time, historical knowledge has been expanded and enriched with new approaches and debates, frequently scattered in a virtual see of publications and research fields.  

Thus, the 17th Congress of the Contemporary History Association is thought as a space from which we can try to offer balances and perspectives reflecting the current state of contemporary historiography, all from the problems and questions characteristic of the 21st century. Their goal is to provide a much needed dialogue between researchers, in the field of History and other alike disciplines, to be used as an exchange of approaches and historiographical approximations, to push the current situation and future destinations of the research in Contemporary History and, at the same time, to address the key issues of the current world from its needed historical perspective. In order to do so, we start from the need of including in the study of the past not only the analysis of historical figures and their individual and collective experiences, but also the analysis of historical processes that have marked the evolution of the contemporary world on the multiple space-time scales, from a global level all the way to local, as well as the characteristic theoretical and methodological reflection of our discipline. 

On 2000, Valencia held the 5th AHC Congress. Ever since then, they haven’t stopped opening different approximation routes to the past. Twenty five years after that meeting, the 17th Congress will lay out a balance about the current state of contemporary historiography and its future perspectives, while at the same time it will offer key explanations related to the multiple questions and uncertainty that characterise the world where we live in.

The congress will have 40 workshops and close to 700 participants.