Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) is widely celebrated as the most original
political thinker in Western Marxism and an all-around outstanding
intellectual figure. Arrested and imprisoned by the Italian Fascist
regime in 1926, Gramsci died before fully regaining his freedom.
Nevertheless, in his prison notebooks, he recorded thousands of
brilliant reflections on an extraordinary range of subjects,
establishing an enduring intellectual legacy.
Columbia University Press's multivolume Prison Notebooks is the only
complete critical edition of Antonio Gramsci's seminal writings in
English. The notebooks' integral text gives readers direct access not
only to Gramsci's influential ideas but also to the intellectual
workshop where those ideas were forged. Extensive notes guide readers
through Gramsci's extraordinary series of reflections on an encyclopedic
range of topics. Volume 2 contains Gramsci's notebooks 3, 4, and 5,
written between 1930 and 1932. Their central themes are popular culture,
Italian history, Americanism, and the Catholic Church as a religious
institution and formidable politico-ideological force. Gramsci also
touches on the Renaissance and Reformation, language and linguistics,
military and diplomatic history, and Japanese and Chinese culture.
Notebook 4 features an innovative reading of canto 10 from Dante's
Inferno and a philosophical analysis of materialism and idealism. It
also includes the first draft of Gramsci's famous observations on the
history and role of intellectuals in society.