Democracy is always at risk. And in times of populism the danger of an authoritarian involution is growing. To arrest him requires a robust democratic conscience. But what does that mean? And through which books is formed a civil identity capable of facing the storms of the present? Intellectuals of different orientation - progressive and not - indicate their ideal library, books and proposals to orient themselves in the great confusion of today.

«How is a democratic mentality built? Are there essays and novels that more than others have the strength to convey the idea of democracy in its meaning of resistance? We asked eight intellectuals to show us the compasses of their navigation, choosing the works that survived the catastrophes of history. And to add to the shelf of the classics those titles that can guide a young reader today between wars, technological revolutions and climatic apocalypses. The result was a democratic library of extraordinary variety, where literature is not ancillary to history and economics. Because no one more than Dostoyevsky is capable of advancing into the dark recesses of consciousness, no one more than Calvin has been able to give narrative form to the historical distance between partisans and Salò boys. And only with Primo Levi did we get out of the dark night of the twentieth century with the moral equipment through which to read the world».
From the preface by Simonetta Fiori