The hypothesis of a progressive transformation of historical conditions seems invalidated by the course of the thirty years since the end of the Cold War. Politically, everything indicates that friend / foe logic continues - it is the easiest way to federate public opinion. Sociologically, the uses of the means of communication interpersonal landmark, substituting exchanges between people to political spaces. Christophe Bouton discusses the role of the great man in history, and Jaron Lanier indicates the challenge of computer networks to seize our era. But everything indicates that the technical upheavals are in turn factors of historical transformations.