Gramsci, Antonio

(1891-1937)

A prominent Italian Marxist theorist and noted critic of economic determinism . After a childhood marked by poverty and ill-health, Gramsci entered the University of Turin, where he seems to have been a particularly talented student of language-related matters. However, because of continuing poverty and deepening political involvements, he left the university in 1915 after four years of study and without graduating. Thereafter he became, in turn, an influential journalist, a prominent political activist and parliamentarian, the leader of the Italian Communist Party (1924-6), and, finally, a political prisoner in Mussolini's gaols (1926-37).

Without denying in any way his immense political importance before and after his death, it nevertheless seems reasonable to say that his current exalted reputation amongst Marxist social scientists rests on the writings now known as The Prison Notebooks (1929-35, edited and translated into English in 1971). Among the topics discussed in the notebooks are: intellectuals , education, Italian history, political parties , fascism , hegemony , and fordism .

These, then, are the ideas and concepts that made Gramsci a pivotal figure in the debates and developments within Marxist social science during the 1970s-as, first, Nicos Poulantzas used them to develop his political sociology; and, later, numerous others used them as a conceptual bridge connecting the Marxist tradition with that of discourse analysis. A good introduction to his life and work, which discusses most of the sociological concepts and topics mentioned above, is James Joll's Gramsci(1977). See also ideology.