Antonio Gramsci
Antonio GramsciThe brain a prison was meant to stop: theorist of hegemony
“The old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” — Prison Notebooks
Italian Marxist philosopher who theorized hegemony: the insight that rule is maintained not by force alone but through consent organized in civil society. From a fascist prison he wrote the Prison Notebooks, laying foundations for Western Marxism.
Career timeline
- 1919Founds L'Ordine Nuovo; the Turin factory-council movement
- 1921Among the founders of the Italian Communist Party
- 1924–1926Party secretary and deputy
- 1926Arrested — 'we must stop this brain for twenty years'
- 1929–1935Writes the thirty-three Prison Notebooks
- 1937Dies days after his release
- 1948–1951Prison writings first published posthumously in six thematic volumes as Prison Notebooks