Miseria dello sviluppo (Laterza Rome-Bari, 2008, pocket edition 2009) of Piero Bevilacqua is one of the most recent Italian contributions to the ongoing debate on contemporary capitalism, its crisis and the reconstruction of a possible alternative to it. The author, a historian specialising in contemporary times, teaches at La Sapienza University in Rome. Committed intellectuals, he is one of the major figures of the fragmented universe, the Italian anti-apitalist left of today. In clear and discursive language, it develops an analysis of the current phase of capitalism by linking historical reconstruction to politico-economic analysis. Mr Bevilacqua referred to the Italian Marxist tradition, and in particular its historical aspect, where economic history was taken into account as the role played by ideologies and cultural and political phenomena. But the author also relies on recent decay theories, addressing them in a critical and original way.