Abstract

The essay analyses Claudio Pavone’s volume on contemporary history published in 2007 in the Laterza ‘First Lessons’ series. In the author’s assessment, the book reflects the intellectual concerns and judgements of Claudio Pavone as an intellectual and historian that despite a close dialogue with the masters of historiography avoids unrewarding methodological exercises. In fact, the book both manifests Pavone’s profound awareness of the subject matter and offers a description of how contemporary history was formed and transformed in a period that coincides with the intellectual life of the author. Also in this manuscript Pavone manifests the coherent civil passion that has innervated his whole life as a scholar.