In 1975 S. Unguru published his controversial paper on the need to rewrite the history of ancient Greek mathematics. The origin of the paper is sketched according to Unguru's own story, and then the paper is contextualized in some of the historiographic and disciplinary discussions and shifts taking place during the decade before its publication. The focus is not only on the history of (Greek) mathematics (J. Klein , A. Szabó , M. S. Mahoney ), but a rather broad approach is taken to capture the wider (U.S.-American, academic) discourse around questions of professionalisation of history of science/mathematics. This analysis shows the complexity of the discursive field in which Unguru's paper was written and received.