“It is necessary to know that, in a lighthouse, there is a room located below where the light comes from, which is called the Guard Chamber. This is where the shift guard, after proceeding with all routine checks, sets up and watches. It is a circular space with no windows to the outside, there is a desk, an armchair, the radio set for scheduled shifts with fixed hours, some works and log books. That notebook that attests, on which all observations must be recorded every quarter of an hour. I did not become a lighthouse keeper or a sailor. But yes as a historian, in my way at least. I have visited lighthouses at sea and have embarked on cargo ships. And I ended up understanding that my cubicle, with the glimpses of the library, the files were my surveillance camera. Hence the title I want to give to this book of interviews. There, too, in the space of the cubicle, changes take place, between what one sees and what one does not. There is what one seeks to see, what one believes one sees, what one strives to make one see. And, frequently, that which, for one reason or another, escapes. As for me, I remain in my guard chamber and will continue, for some time, at least, to do guard duty, until the shift changes.” François Hartog Reflections on the long course of time and a distant view of the current world, these interviews reveal the unique perceptions of one of the best historians of our time.