Lettres de prison

Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) was an Italian Marxist theorist, one-time leader of the Italian Communist Party, and founder of the official Party newspaper, l'Unita. Widely considered a leading exponent of post-Lenin neo-Marxism, he was imprisoned in 1926 by Mussolini's Fascist regime and remained incarcerated until shortly before his death. During this period he wrote more than 30 notebooks, which detailed his ideas about Italian history, critical theory, and Marxism. Among his key contributions to political theory is the notion of cultural hegemony, the means by which the ruling capitalist class maintains control of the state. In addition to the Prison Notebooks (Columbia, 1992-2007, three volumes), his Letters from Prison (Columbia, 1994, two volumes) and a collection of Pre-Prison Writings (Cambridge, 1994) have been published.