Thirty-five years ago the introduction of the plate tectonics paradigm led to a new understanding of orogeny. Subsequently, the development of advanced instruments for remote collection of information and for analysis of elemental and isotopic composition of materials, and the increases in computing power have enabled an unprecedented number of high-precision data about the Earth to be collected, analyzed, modelled and displayed. Within this revolution in global tectonics, the metamorphic petrologist has developed methods to unravel the depth, thermal, temporal and deformational history of orogens using detailed observations at map, hand sample and thin-section scales in combination with elemental and isotope data, and using inverse and forward modelling. Two exciting new directions in metamorphic petrology in relation to geodynamics concern the kinship between earthquakes and metamorphic reactions in subduction zones, and the petrology of the Earth’s mantle. Evidence of the changes in pressure ( P) and temperature ( T) in the Earth’s crust and upper mantle during the break up, movement, and collision of pieces of the continental lithosphere is sporadically recorded by the mineralogy and microstructures preserved in rocks exhumed to the surface. Better calibration of phase equilibria, the use of internally-consistent thermodynamic data sets and the development of techniques to retrieve close-to-peak P–T conditions from metamorphic rocks have yielded more precise P–T data that enhance our ability to characterize the path followed by individual rocks in P–T space. An improved ability to date segments of the P–T path, and to separate the length of time associated with the prograde (increasing T) evolution from the age of close-to-peak P–T conditions has enabled better understanding of the rates and processes involved in lithosphere thickening. At the same time, better constraints on the retrograde thermal history have contributed to our knowledge of the several tectonic processes that may operate during exhumation, although these are less well understood. The expanding database of key information, combined with predictions from modelling, has allowed the identification of characteristic P–T–t evolutions expected for rocks that have undergone distinct tectono-metamorphic histories. However, relating structural events recorded by rocks to specific points along the P–T evolution remains problematic, particularly regarding complex overprinting patterns of inclusion trails in porphyroblasts. These advances have improved our understanding of the tectonic evolution of orogens. At the extreme of conditions for crustal metamorphism are the recently discovered ultra-high pressure (UHP) and ultra-high temperature (UHT) facies of metamorphism. Both are problematic given our limited knowledge of processes at these conditions, particularly the return of UHP rocks from peak- P conditions and the mechanism for extreme heat in the crust in UHT metamorphism. The extreme depth inferred for metamorphism in some UHP terranes raises the issue of whether theoretically plausible tectonic overpressures can be dynamically maintained to affect metamorphic reactions. If the pressure gradient recorded by UHP rocks is greater than lithostatic, the UHP metamorphism may have occurred at depths shallower than currently believed. These studies have provided a reliable first-order framework for the comparison of rocks of ancient suture zones where the plate tectonics situation is less certain. However, orogens are spatially and temporally extended nonlinear systems with feedback relations. Such complex systems generate apparently simple behavior by self-organization, and the influence of unique histories must be respected.