Antonio Gramsci is one of the most globally celebrated figures of twentieth-century Italy, renowned in the world for his contributions to philosophy, political theory, sociology, cultural studies and historiography. Yet his work has been equally discussed, debated and contested within Italy itself, a constant reference point – whether in fervent agreement or angry polemics – for parties and tendencies across the Italian left from the late 1910s down to our present day.
In this fundamental overview of Gramsci’s reception in Italy and his contested legacy within a range of traditions, Guido Liguori provides a balanced view of the many uses to which Gramsci’s thought has been put, with a particular focus on the important relationship with the Italian Communist Party leader, Palmiro Togliatti.
This book was first published in Italian as
Gramsci conteso: Storia di un dibattito 1922-1996 by Editori Riuniti, 1996 (2nd Ed. 2012).
Guido Liguori is Professor of the History of Contemporary Political Thought at the University of Calabria, and President of the International Gramsci Society. His many authoritative works on Gramsci and the Italian Communist Party include
Gramsci’s Pathways (Brill, 2015).
Preface to the Second Edition Preface to the First Edition
1
Gramsci in the Writings of His Contemporaries (1922–1938) 1
The Liberal History of a Sardinian Communist 2
Off the ‘High Road’ 3
The Sentence 4
Prison 5
Death 6
‘Antonio Gramsci, Leader of the Italian Working Class’ 7
‘An Irreparable Loss’ 8
Between Carducci and Pascoli
2
The Identity and Tradition of the Party (1939–1947) 1
Gramsci and Togliatti 2
The ‘New Party’ and the Intellectuals 3
‘Gramsci’s Politics’ 4
Politics and Culture 5
Between Croce and Marx
3
Diamat and the Notebooks (1948–1955) 1
The Cold War and the Prison Notebooks 2
Gramsci’s ‘Anti-Fascism’ 3
Interpreting the Notebooks 4
Dogmatic and Non-dogmatic Marxisms 5
Dissonances 6
The History of the Italian Communist Party 7
A Legendary Comrade 8
First Evaluations and New Perspectives
4
Gramsci and the Italian Road to Socialism (1956–59) 1
1956 2
‘Too Few Gramscians’ 3
Gramsci’s Relevance 4
Gramsci and Leninism 5
The Rome Conference 6
The ‘Return to Marx’ 7
The Future City 8
The Debate on Italian Unification
5
From the ‘New History’ of the Communist Party to the Crisis of Historicism (1960–9) 1
The Late Togliatti 2
The ‘New History’ of the Italian Communist Party 3
Three Biographies 4
The ‘Giovane Critica’ 5
The Crisis of Historicism 6
Gramsci and Civil Society 7
The ‘Historicisation’ of Gramsci 8
Within the International Communist Movement 9
Historicism and the Communist Party
6
The Golden Age (1970–1975) 1
Gramsci Back on His Feet 2
Workerism and Americanism 3
Gramsci and the Soviets 4
The Concept of Hegemony 5
The Primacy of the Political 6
Gramsci’s Marxism 7
Gramsci and the State 8
Gramsci and the ‘New Left’ 9
The ‘Gerratana Edition’
7
The Apogee and Crisis of Gramscian Culture (1976–1977) 1
The Pluralism Debate 2
Hegemony and Democracy 3
The Frattocchie Seminar 4
The Florence Congress 5
The Crisis
8
Ten Years of ‘Blackout’ (1978–1986) 1
The Crisis of Marxism 2
Gramsci and ‘Organicism’ 3
Prediction and Praxis 4
Intellectuals and Power 5
Interpretations of Hegemony 6
In the ‘Factory’ of the Notebooks 7
Gramsci, Religion, Catholicism
9
Between Politics and Philology (1987–1996) 1
Gramsci and the Communist Party in 1987 2
Gramsci in the World 3
The Fiftieth Anniversary of a ‘Classic’ 4
Gramscians and Post-Gramscians 5
Between Politics and History 6
A Post-communist Gramsci 7
Gramsci, Togliatti, Stalin 8
Gramsci, Tania, Sraffa 9
Towards a New Edition of Gramsci’s Works
10
Liberal Democrat or Critical Communist? (1997–2000) 1
National and International 2
The Return of Civil Society 3
Taylorism and Fordism 4
Gramsci’s Method 5
The Story of a Prisoner 6
Gramsci Contested at the End of the Millennium
11
Gramsci in the Twenty-First Century (2000–2008) 1
For Gramsci 2
Gramscian Research 3
Gramsci’s Translatability 4
Renewed Interest 5
Gramsci and Politics
12
Gramsci’s Return (2009–2012) 1
New Working Tools 2
On the ‘Philosophy of Praxis’ 3
Gramsci’s ‘Fortune’ 4
Creative Uses 5
Stories and Histories 6
The Political and Theoretical Journey of the Prison Years 7
The Future Gramsci
Bibliography Index
Readers of Gramsci’s work, students of the history of Marxism or of Marxism in Italy, political scientists interested in the theory of the state, civil society and political hegemony.