CULTURA Y LITERATURA

by Antonio Gramsci

Cuando Gramsci fue condenado en 1926, por un tribunal fascista, a veinte años de cárcel, era ya un destacado dirigente del movimiento obrero italiano. En las condiciones excepcionales de la cárcel, Gramsci se trazó una línea de trabajo intensa y sistemática: a partir de la poquísima documentación de que disponía y dentro de los límites que le marcaba su precaria salud, estudió los temas que le preocupaban fundamentalmente. Estos temas eran, entre otros, aquellos en cuya base se encuentra el espíritu popular creador.

Paperback

Published January 1, 1977

About the author

Antonio Francesco Gramsci was an Italian Marxist philosopher, linguist, journalist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, political theory, sociology, history, and linguistics. He was a founding member and one-time leader of the Italian Communist Party. A vocal critic of Benito Mussolini and fascism, he was imprisoned in 1926, where he remained until his death in 1937.

During his imprisonment, Gramsci wrote more than 30 notebooks and 3,000 pages of history and analysis. His Prison Notebooks are considered a highly original contribution to 20th-century political theory. Gramsci drew insights from varying sources — not only other Marxists but also thinkers such as Niccolò Machiavelli, Vilfredo Pareto, Georges Sorel, and Benedetto Croce. The notebooks cover a wide range of topics, including the history of Italy and Italian nationalism, the French Revolution, fascism, Taylorism and Fordism, civil society, the state, historical materialism, folklore, religion, and high and popular culture.
Gramsci is best known for his theory of cultural hegemony, which describes how the state and ruling capitalist class — the bourgeoisie — use cultural institutions to maintain wealth and power in capitalist societies. In Gramsci's view, the bourgeoisie develops a hegemonic culture using ideology rather than violence, economic force, or coercion. He also attempted to break from the economic determinism of orthodox Marxist thought, and so is sometimes described as a neo-Marxist. He held a humanistic understanding of Marxism, seeing it as a philosophy of praxis and an absolute historicism that transcends traditional materialism and traditional idealism.

Reviews

[Eloy Rhöwenta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bien, aunque esperaba más.

[andrea morelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

La gramática normativa como acto meramente político (intento de homegeneización lingüística por parte de las clases dominantes)