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

Cover
......Page 1
Contents......Page 6
A Note on the Text......Page 11
Thinking through Gramsci......Page 12
The structure of the book......Page 13
PART ONE Life......Page 16
Introduction......Page 18
Sardinian origins: Antonu su gobbu......Page 19
Journalism and militancy......Page 21
L’Ordine Nuovo......Page 24
The Communist Party......Page 27
Prison and the Notebooks......Page 31
PART TWO Thought......Page 36
Introduction......Page 38
Defining the intellectual......Page 41
The organic intellectual and the traditional intellectual......Page 44
Intellectuals and political struggle......Page 47
Defining education......Page 50
The school......Page 52
The dialectic of conformity and spontaneity......Page 54
The press and the organization of culture......Page 56
The bourgeois press......Page 57
‘Integral journalism’......Page 59
Popular literature......Page 61
Introduction......Page 64
Difficult definitions......Page 66
‘East’ and ‘West’......Page 69
War of movement and war of position......Page 70
Gramsci’s method of historical analysis......Page 71
The era of revolution-restoration......Page 72
The national-popular Jacobin revolution......Page 73
The Risorgimento as ‘passive revolution’......Page 74
Trasformismo, molecularity and scission......Page 76
Conjunctural processes and organic crises......Page 78
Caesarism......Page 80
The analysis of fascism......Page 82
What is a political party?......Page 84
The modern Prince: The incarnation of revolution......Page 86
The party as living organism......Page 88
Two errors of revolutionary strategy......Page 89
Theory, practice and philosophical anthropology......Page 92
‘Every man is a philosopher’......Page 94
The ‘folklore of philosophy’......Page 97
A pragmatist epistemology......Page 100
Ideology......Page 102
Religion and the Catholic Church......Page 104
Point of departure: The base/superstructure metaphor......Page 109
The critique of economism......Page 110
Americanism and Fordism......Page 112
Point of arrival: The ‘historic bloc’......Page 116
Materialism, idealism and Croce......Page 119
‘Absolute historicism’......Page 123
The revolution of common sense......Page 125
Introduction......Page 128
Origins......Page 129
Political projects......Page 130
Consent and coercion......Page 133
A culture in formation......Page 136
The ethical State......Page 138
Hegemonic consciousness as catharsis......Page 141
The pre-hegemonic State......Page 143
Bourgeois hegemony......Page 144
From proletarian hegemony to the ‘regulated society’......Page 147
PART THREE Applications......Page 150
Introduction......Page 152
Contextualizing common sense: Left/Right in politics and everyday life......Page 155
Historicizing common sense: Left/Right since the French Revolution......Page 161
Analysing common sense: The formal characteristics of the Left/Right metaphor......Page 165
The conception of the world contained in common sense: The conception of politics underlying Left/Right......Page 169
The critique of common sense: Interpreting Left/Right as a political narrative......Page 175
Conclusion......Page 179
Introduction......Page 182
Stuart Hall: Thatcherism as hegemonic project......Page 186
Socialist politics in France before 1981: A Left turn......Page 190
Five years of Socialist government: A rocky path to neo-liberalism......Page 195
Parti Socialiste discourse during neo-liberalization: Dissonance and demobilization......Page 200
Coherent vs. split historic blocs......Page 203
Neo-liberalism and intellectuals in France: Transformism and fatalism......Page 207
Conclusion......Page 212
PART FOUR Legacy......Page 214
Introduction......Page 216
Gramsci and Western Marxism......Page 217
Gramsci and Italian communism......Page 221
Gramsci and post-Marxism......Page 225
Gramsci and Postcolonial Studies......Page 228
Gramsci and Cultural Studies......Page 234
Gramsci and International Political Economy......Page 239
Conclusion......Page 243
Gramsci in English......Page 246
Secondary sources......Page 247
Other resources......Page 248
A suggestion on reading Gramsci......Page 249
Bibliography......Page 251
Index......Page 261