Prison Notebooks - (European Perspectives: A Social Thought and Cultural Criticism) by Antonio Gramsci

Book Synopsis

Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) is widely celebrated as the most original political thinker in Western Marxism and an all-around outstanding intellectual figure. Arrested and imprisoned by the Italian Fascist regime in 1926, Gramsci died before fully regaining his freedom. Nevertheless, in his prison notebooks, he recorded thousands of brilliant reflections on an extraordinary range of subjects, establishing an enduring intellectual legacy.

Columbia University Press's multivolume Prison Notebooks is the only complete critical edition of Antonio Gramsci's seminal writings in English. The notebooks' integral text gives readers direct access not only to Gramsci's influential ideas but also to the intellectual workshop where those ideas were forged. Extensive notes guide readers through Gramsci's extraordinary series of reflections on an encyclopedic range of topics. Volume 1 opens with an introduction to Gramsci's project, describing the circumstances surrounding the composition of his notebooks and examining his method of inquiry and critical analysis. It is accompanied by a detailed chronology of the author's life. An unparalleled translation of notebooks 1 and 2 follows, which laid the foundations for Gramsci's later writings. Most intriguing are his earliest formulations of the concepts of hegemony, civil society, and passive revolution.

From the Back Cover

While in prison, Gramsci wrote a series of notebooks covering an extraordinarily wide range of issues; they are his principal achievement. Written without thought of publication, the pages of Gramsci's notebooks record and reveal this interests in history and historiography, the role of intellectuals in society, political theory, philosophy, Americanism and Fordism, religion, education, cultural analysis, literature, folklore, and linguistics.

Review Quotes

Altogether a tremendous acheivement...This volume provides us with an immediate sense of the scale and diverseity of Gramsci's project.--Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) was an Italian Marxist theorist, one-time leader of the Italian Communist Party, and founder of the official party newspaper, l'Unita. Arrested and imprisoned by the Italian Fascist regime in 1926, Gramsci died before fully regaining his freedom. Gramsci's thirty-three prison notebooks, which contain brilliant reflections on a vast range of subjects, are foundational for an array of disciplines and schools of thought.

Joseph A. Buttigieg (1947-2019) was professor emeritus of English at the University of Notre Dame. He was the author and editor of a number of books, including A Portrait of the Artist in Different Perspective, The Legacy of Antonio Gramsci, Criticism Without Boundaries, Gramsci and Education, European Christian Democracy, and most notably the complete critical edition of Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks (Columbia, 1992-2007). He was also founding member and president of the International Gramsci Society.