In the book offered to the reader's attention, the author highlights some of the results of the development of historical science over the past decades, talks about the methods and methods of the historian's work, about the most important methodological and philosophical problems of historical science, tries to characterize the place of history in the system of sciences, determine what its role is in modern society, in the ideological struggle. The book is based on a course of lectures that the author gave for several years at the Faculty of History of Moscow State University.