Prison Notebooks

Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), generally considered the most original political writer in the tradition of Western Marxism, is one of the outstanding intellectual figures of the twentieth century. Arrested and imprisoned by the Italian Fascist regime in 1926, he died before fully regaining his freedom. 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 his 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. The integral text of the notebooks gives readers direct access not only to Gramsci's influential ideas but also to the intellectual workshop where those ideas were forged. This is the initial colume of the first complete critical edition of Antonio Gramsci's Prsion Notebooks to appear in English. His translation is based on the authoritiative edition, Quaderni del carcere, prepared by Valentino Gerrantana. In his introductory essay, the editor and translator Joseph A. Buttigieg describes the developemnt of Gramsci's project and the circumstances surrounding the composition of the Notebooks. He also provides a detailed chronology of Gramsci's life. Extensive notes (including many important passages translated from Gramsci's earlier writings and his letters) guide readers through Gramsci's extraordinary series of reflections on an encyclopedic range of topics. This edition is planned to be published in five volumes. The frist volume contains notebooks one and two.