An Introduction to Antonio Gramsci: His Life, Thought and Legacy

by George Hoare, Nathan Sperber

This is a concise introduction to the life and work of the Italian militant and political thinker, Antonio Gramsci. As head of the Italian Communist Party in the 1920s, Gramsci was arrested and condemned to 20 years' imprisonment by Mussolini's fascist regime. It was during this imprisonment that Gramsci wrote his famous Prison Notebooks – over 2,000 pages of profound and influential reflections on history, culture, politics, philosophy and revolution.An Introduction to Antonio Gramsci retraces the trajectory of Gramsci's life, before examining his conceptions of culture, politics and philosophy. Gramsci's writings are then interpreted through the lens of his most famous concept, that of 'hegemony'; Gramsci's thought is then extended and applied to 'think through' contemporary problems to illustrate his distinctive historical methodology. The book concludes with a valuable examination of Gramsci's legacy today and useful tips for further reading.George Hoare and Nathan Sperber make Gramsci accessible for students of history, politics and philosophy keen to understand this seminal figure in 20th-century intellectual history.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Politics, Philosophy, Biography

273 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 19, 2015

Reviews

[Dale · Rating 5 out of 5]

This helped me make more sense of the Prison Notebooks, by putting the various threads of Gramsci's thought into a framework with hegemony as the unifying concept. The book consists of a brief biography, some coverage of Gramsci's early writings, sections on politics, culture, the 'historic bloc', a small amount of discussion of organic vs. conjunctural crises, and a lengthy discussion of the concept of hegemony, by which the above threads are tied together.

The book concludes with a pair of case studies: applications of Gramscian ideas to contemporary questions. I thought this was an especially good idea, since Gramsci's work was versatile and grounded enough to be applicable over a wide spectrum of political and cultural settings.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent introduction to Gramsci, as well as examples of the application of his thought by various thinkers. Not too sure about the philosophical analysis in chapter 4. Positing Gramsci as maintaing some sort of middle-ground between idealism and materialism seems absurd—Hoare himself notes that the materialism Gramsci is critiquing is a "vulgar materialism," not the broader philosophical position of materialism.