A partisan history of the Constitution

The volume by Giuseppe Filippetta represents an important step forward in the interpretation of the Italian Resistance, as it provides the readers with a new approach, which offers an innovative understanding of the civil war period. The author, who has a legal background, analyses the Resistance as a fight over sovereignty, adopting a point of view which has never been tried before. By using a wide range of sources – literature, memoirs, films –, he traces in the lives and actions of the partisans the origin of a novel conception of power and of the relationship between individuals and the State. In the post-war years, such a conception would give a key contribution to shaping the new democratic Constitution.