Customer Reviews

Selections from the Prison Notebooks

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This selection from Gramsci's "Prison Notebooks" contains his most important work written during his imprisonment from the italian fascist regime. It includes "the Intellectuals", texts on Education, Notes on Italian History, "The modern Prince", "State and Civil Society", "Americanism and Fordism" and notes on the philosophy of praxis, together with a very informative introduction on the italian Communist Movement in the first decades of the 20th century. In this collection Gramsci's theory of "hegemony" in class societies is fully presented, together with his intepretation of Marxism both in philosophy and in the analysis of the modern world.

Gramsci was on of the foremost leaders of the Italian Communist Party; in his trial in 1927 the fascist Public Prosecutor proclaimed that his brain must be stopped from functioning for twenty years. Fortunately, Gramsci proved to be a devoted fighter in prison and his Notebooks furthered -in many points- the analysis of Marx and Lenin of how capitalism functions and how it could be overthrown.

Gramsci's Prison Notebooks marks one of the nodal points of Western Marxism's break with Leninism and the breed of marxism born of the Bolshevik Revolution. Exploratory and incomplete, the insights contained in this volume marked a turning point in marxist thinking, indeed leading many right through the marxist fold and out the other side. Gramsci's insights into philosphy, cultural criticism, political economy, and politics make this a crucial resource for anyone interested in any of these themes today ... marxist or otherwise. And for those interested in the 'fall' of marxism, Gramsci is perhaps the most important starting point. A veritable critical goldmine!!!!

Michel Foucault once remarked that Antonio Gramsci is a figure much cited and little read. Once upon a time (in the 90s, when things seemed more dismal, then they really were) neoconservatives were warned that Gramscianism was conducting a "long march through the institutions": leftists of a freethinking and free-wheeling bent threw around "organic intellectual" as denoting indigenous members of collective subjects not quite proletarian, and wondered whether "hegemony" was being orchestrated by hip-hop provocateurs.

But in yet another retrenchment of yet another cruel decade, Gramsci has fallen off the map. The neocons wonder if Hillary Rodham Clinton is "angry" about things other than her man and Whitewater; the bohemian leftists wonder about Empire, or stay silent. Which is probably well enough, when it comes to the Gramscian corpus. For although this is the work of an ill-deserved confinement courtesy of one of the world's more notable totalitarian regimes, its stated aim is to be itself "totalitarian" in conception. Antonio Gramsci was something much more complex than a "freedom fighter", and his pronouncements regarding a multitude of subjects in this selection from his *Quaderni del carcere* deserve to be analyzed critically rather than sympathetically.

"Open Marxism" this is not: Gramsci has three major tasks, all of which are compatible with Leninist-Stalinist orthodoxy. Firstly, to analyze the "passive revolution" which has put forth another alternative to progressive political change yet left the productive forces of the economy modernizing with all due speed; secondly, to celebrate the fact of the Communist party's Russian dominance by studying not-necessarily-democratic "hegemony" as a form of political expression throughout modern history; thirdly, to advocate a form of Marxism thoroughly divorced from the materialist scruples of mechanics and keeping its eyes focused firmly on the historical here and now.

All of which are interesting projects, worthy of the best political science and historical ontology that the bourgeois world has to offer, but all of which compete with more explicitly liberatory ideologies (Trotsky's "permanent revolution", representative democracy, Encylopedic enthusiasm for a truly popular science) and offer nuance rather than redemption. Gramsci's communism is, cliched though it may be, somewhat Jesuitical and overly "disciplined" in the face of historical setbacks and core organizational shibboleths of the Comintern: we are offered only details filling out a party line we should believe in anyway, rather than a stirring defense of people power. This book is brilliant, rather than inspirational, and its theses should be troubling, if enlightening, for a member of the democratic left.

Gramsci's political theory stands as some of the most influential thought in the social sciences, both inside and outside the Marxist school. This edition of The Prison Notebooks has all of his most important work. Furthermore, the editors did an excellent job of informing the reader of the context which Gramsci was writing in, which is imperative for accurate conception of his ideals. The 60 page introduction by the editors does a tremendous job of placing Gramsci's work in the turbulent mess which was post-WWI Italy.

As one can imagine, much of Gramsci's work is outdated, but his work on cultural-hegemony and "common sense" has never dwindled in relevance. Analyzing the forces that create and sustain political consciousness is not only the greatest contribution of Antonio Gramsci, but his analysis has much to tell the contemporary reader trying to understand why individuals act as they do in current political order.

This is quite a dark work, through and through.

As Gramsci says, Machievelli's Prince is "a live work," and is certainly alive and well in Gramsci. His persistent attention to tactical detail and strategy - when to ally oneself with those on the left, and when to ally oneself with those on the right; when to lay in wait and lick one's wounds, and when to go on the attack - is cold as ice and sharp as steel. In the sense that Machievelli felt that the republic was the best form of government as it fostered civic spiritedness, so Gramsci understands the importance of cultivating his a citizen's inner commitment to the cause. This is achieved by melding civil society with the state. There should be no difference betwixt the two. Your sex life will be regulated. No drinking! Being tied all day to the assembly line won't dehumanize you; in fact, you'll have all the more time to think, to daydream. As Gramsci tells us, all men are intellectuals, insofar as they engage in intellectual and muscular-nervous activity. An assembly line replete with philosophers!

All of the actual political implications aside, let us be honest, he is not so much a philosopher of Marxism as he is of power: how to take it and how to maintain it. I guess there's something called neo-Gramscianism out there in int'l relations schools, and this isn't surprising at all. The Hegelian-Marxist method is a wonderful tool for understanding how history unfolds and "historical blocs" are formed but, like anything, is dangerous in the wrong hands.

Anyway, that stuff aside, Gramsci was a genius and this shows on every page. The insight and erudition is sparkling and his understanding of the dialectic, praxis, consciousness, historical context, class relations is second to none.

The edition itself is also good, with excellent footnotes do a good job on expounding on the names and concepts Gramsci drops throughout the text.

I'm ideologically as far as possible from this book. I'm not a Gramscian, nor am I a Marxist. What this rating purports to do is to praise the publisher, not the author. I bought this book because I was interested in the Gramscian ideology, and was not willing to read all volumes of "Prison Notebooks". Selections are great as is the physical quality of the book.

I read this book, here in Brazil, some years ago.Please, I'm a complete anti-communist and I must tell that this the best marxist book, I ever saw.
Why?Because in all places of the world, in the last thirty years, the left got victories, using ever Gramsci's ideas.
No Marx's or Leninist original ideas sent left any power.Since 1979,in Nicaragua, there's no communist revolution, in any part of the world.
Whithout a single shot, left imposed communist tyrannies in places such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Zimbabwe,etc.
And left got Brazil, Argentina,Venezuela,etc. using Gramsci's ideas.
Guevarism sent Che Guevara himself to defeat and a grave easily for Bolivia's army.
Gramscism sent the bolivian Evo Morales to total power, with no risk and without a single shot.
Gramsci showed to the left, during 1920 decade, how to get power, in nowadays.
Today, the marxism is gramscism.Read this this book and see this fact.

"Precision of terms is a revolutionary imperative." -Lenin

Gramsci's name gets bandied about on the academic left enough to make the rest of us feel as though we're missing something if we haven't read him. I took a look at the two chapters that are supposed to be the most relevant to political struggle, "The Modern Prince" and "State and Civil Society", and I'm here to tell activists not to bother slogging through it.

The few key insights the book does offer are easily summarized, and though they might have been fresh in the 1930s, they are by now commonplace: the struggle for socialism must be waged on the terrain of social and cultural insititutions, capitalism exerts its influence not only through brute force but through ideological conditioning using the schools, legal system, and other institutions, etc.

The book itself is very difficult going-- first, it was written under the watchful eye of the prison censors, so it is couched in very vague, allusive, and cryptic terms, and second, it presupposes a great deal of knowledge in the reader of Italian political and intellectual history, and the history of the European Communist Parties. Third, Gramsci's writing style is slapdash and disorganized (though perhaps clarity is too much to expect from someone who was denied medical care in a Fascist prison until it killed him).

It's not surprising that this book has launched a thousand PhD theses and become a cornerstone of ivory-tower socialism. Its abstruse writing makes it perfect fodder for mandarinism and intellectual bluster.

Students of social change would spend their reading time better elsewhere.