At twenty years old he was already a professional revolutionary ready for the Special Fascist Court; at just under thirty-five he sketched the project of a European federalism for which he would fight for the rest of his life. With regard to its own action, Altiero Spinelli nourished at the same time pride and fear that it did not leave a sign, so in his last years he decided to write this book, which recounts his life until the post-war period: his youth, his first readings, the adherence to the Communist party, the discovery of love and sex, the conspiracy, the sixteen years of prison and confinement, the first steps in the commitment to European federalism. The result was a "confession" of rare intensity, where the pieces of personal and political experience are recomposed into an exemplary formation novel, a testimony that has few equals in the memoirs of Italian twentieth century.