Since the early twenty-first century the photobook has experienced an unprecedented creative explosion; faced with the press's decline, photographers have turned massively to the book as a privileged space of expression, while a host of innovative small publishers compete in graphic and material inventiveness, fairs, festivals and communities of enthusiasts testifying to a sector in full effervescence. Within this rich context, this essay proposes a necessary cartography, identifying and characterising a particularly vigorous vein, that of "creative documentary": these photobooks restore patient inquiries into societal phenomena, crossing images, texts and documents within elaborate structures, combining documentary rigour with powerful formal creativity to form genuine "thinking machines" that actively engage the reader, intellect and sensitivity alike, before the complexity of the contemporary world.