This paper presents some episodes that illustrate how the teaching of history and the social sciences in Colombia has been a source of conflict among intellectuals, academics and the state. This body of knowledge is presented as an attractive field that can be capitalized on by different approaches to knowledge and power. The change in the names and periodic invocations of social actors who seek to recover their relevance in relation to the educational needs of the country actually highlight chapters of such tensions, in which professional historians have played a leading role.