Gramsci's Political Thought

Bol Partner

The unifying idea of Gramsci's famous "Prison Notebooks" is the concept of hegemony. In this study of these fragmentary writings, Dr Femia elucidates the precise character of this concept. The unifying idea of Gramsci's famous Prison Notebooks is the concept of hegemony. In his study of these fragmentary writings, now published in paperback for the first time, Dr Femia elucidates the precise character of this concept, explores its basic philosophical assumptions, and sets out its implications for Gramsci's explanation of social stability and his vision of the revolutionary process. A number of prevalent and often contradictory myths are demolished, and, moreover, certain neglected aspects of his thought are stressed, including the predominant role he attributed to economic factors, the importance he gave to 'contradictory consciousness', and the close connection between his political thinking and his fundamental philosophical premises. The author concludes by critically examining Gramsci's novel solutions to three long-standing problems for Marxist theory: why has the Western working class not carried out its revolutionary mission; what is the appropriate strategy for a Marxist party working within an advanced capitalist framework; and what are the reasons behind the failure of existing socialist states in their task of liberation.

Bol

Antonio Gramsci was an innovative and wide-ranging thinker whose interpretations of Marxism helped rescue it from determinism and economic reductionism. In the words of Stuart Hall: 'Reading Gramsci has fertilised our political imagination, transformed our way of thinking, our style of thought, our whole political project'. Gramsci's creative use of terms such as hegemony, civil society and historic block adds a new dimension to political vocabulary. But the fragmentary nature of his writings, especially in the Prison Notebooks, means that it is not always easy to grasp the full significance of his ideas. This book, completely revised in 1991 and further revised in 2015, provides an account of Gramsci's work which makes his writing accessible and comprehensible for the contemporary reader.

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Pages: 320, Paperback, Clarendon Press