The work is an attempt to shift the historiographic focus from the overtly political, in which the parties are agents and at the centre of history, to ethics, that is, analysing subjective motivations, aspirations, delusions and hopes within the partisan movement.

Pavone's book significantly shaped historical debates relating to the Resistance and to the crucial period between the armistice of Cassibile and Italian liberation.

[1] The work proposes that the period be considered as three simultaneous wars: "patriotic" against the German invader, "civil" between Italian fascists and anti-fascists, and "class" between revolutionary and bourgeois.

[2][3] Mark Mazower of Columbia University, called A Civil War a "great work" and "among the few indisputable masterpieces of contemporary history.

"[4] David Ellwood, in the English Historical Review, noted, "Pavone’s book will always remain as the outstanding monument to the Resistance movement in its philosophical and political dimensions.