The Cheese and the Worms: the cosmos of a Twentieth-century historian was originally published in History & Criticism (1985), a collection of essays by Dominick LaCapra. Openly polemic, the essay performs a close reading of a classic text of Twentieth-century historiography, The Cheese and the Worms (1976), by Carlo Ginzburg, seeking to make visible and problematize certain tendencies then - and still - prevalent in the historical profession. LaCapra's purpose is to call the attention of historians to the necessity of reflecting on their practice and developing modes of interpretation more critical and self-critical, in a closer dialogue with the disciplines of literary criticism and contemporary philosophy. In translating it into Portuguese, we seek to contribute to the wider dissemination of LaCapra's work among the Brazilian academic public.