The fundamental point of Mario Sbroccoli's approach in this text, which is already a classic of contemporary legal historiography, is the relationship between civilization and criminal law, the construction of a civil criminal law. Anyone who is intellectually interested in this hot topic in today's public sphere, the criminal problem, will find in this book fundamental ideas for a serene and realistic reflection. Certainly, one of the great contemporary challenges is the reinvention of a public sphere degraded by the assaults it has suffered as a result of violence and by the punitive demand for violence itself. Furthermore, it is a book that helps the current jurist to be able to correctly place a significant part of his theoretical arsenal in history.