Gramsci's Political Thought

The unifying idea of Antonio Gramsci's 'Prison notebooks' is the concept of hegemony. In his study of these fragmentary writings, Joseph Femia elucidates this concept and sets out its implications for Gramsci's explanation of social stability and his vision of the revolutionary process. Femia concludes by examining Gramsci's novel solutions to three long-standing problems for Marxist theory: why the Western working class has not carried out its revolutionary mission; what is the appropriate strategy for a Marxist party working within an advanced capitalist framework; and what are the reasons behind the failure of existing socialist states in their task of liberation. Gramsci's work, Femia argues, holds out the prospect of a more humane and democratic alternative to Leninist Communism.--