In Apology... the French historian Mark Blok substantiates both the "legitimacy" of his craft, the right of the historian, in particular and moral, to do what he does, and the "usefulness" of the historian's profession in the system of social division of labor. But no matter how high the social status of the historian is, allowing him to claim special internal autonomy, in his studies of the past he has no right to distance himself from the problems of modern reality. The subject of historical research according to the author's concept is a person in time. The author proceeds from their position that a person's consciousness is not unified over time, but changes under the influence of certain factors, and the historian needs to take this difference into account. Blok is convinced that knowledge of the past should help a person "live better."