How to understand the recent renewal of interest in Arab left-wing trends in the 1960s and 1970s? And how do we make sense of the concomitant development of archival practices, initiated by both scholars and former militants? Indeed, the 1960s and, more specifically, the history of the Arab Left at that time, have long been left untouched. Beginning with the end of the 1990s, the attempts to better understand the historical processes that made the Sixties a critical juncture, a “transnational moment of change,” gave birth to a new epistemological framework, which addressed from the periphery the issues of the Cold War, national emancipation struggles, and the transformation of political subjectivities. Until recently, however, the Arab Left was set apart from this scholarship. This is now changing. Today, we observe the flourishing of scholarship on the 1960s and 1970s Arab Left. Furthermore, former militants have not only written histories, they have also published an increasing number of novels, memoirs and more or less fictional biographies, or started digitizing militant documents of the 1960s and 1970s. For instance, Dalal al-Bizri has published two books related to her involvement in the Organization of Communist Action in Lebanon (1971), while Ahmad Beydoun has disseminated on his website articles originally published by the group Socialist Lebanon (1964-1971). Among other, Wael al-Sawwah and Sa’id al-Ulaymi have recently published a few pieces on the leftist groups to which they belonged in the 1970s –respectively the Syrian Labor League/Party (1972) and the Egyptian Communist Workers Party (1972). And the latter has made several militant documents available online. Drawing on these contemporary militant archival practices in Egypt, in Syria and in Lebanon, I would like to raise three intertwined issues. To what extend do these practices reveal the reframing of (former) militants’ stance toward their past and give birth to new narratives and interpretations of the history of 1960s and 1970s Left? And how does (former) militants’ re-engagement with this past relate to their vision of today’s political landscape and to new horizons of expectation? How, as scholars, do we engage with these new sources, as well as with the intertwining of militant past and present voices? Finally, how to enhance further cooperation between scholars, former militants, and institutions in order to make these sources and narratives more accessible to a wider audience? And what is at stake in this endeavor?