The Gramsci reader

Anthology of Gramsci's work commented by his great interpreter, Carlos Nelson Couinho

The Gramsci Reader , an anthology organized by Carlos Nelson Coutinho – one of the most important Gramscian intellectuals in the world –, was conceived with the aim of facilitating the first approach of readers with the work of Antonio Gramsci.

The book is divided into two parts. The first contains some of the most significant texts from the main stages of Gramsci's thought prior to his imprisonment. The second contains a selection of notes from the famous Prison Notebooks , which constitute the most mature moment of Gramsci's contribution to the evolution of social theory. While the texts in the first part are presented in chronological order, the second is grouped by theme, more or less as Gramsci himself suggested in his "special notebooks."

Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci is one of the most influential foreign intellectuals in contemporary Brazilian social thought. Since the late 1960s, when his work began to be published in Brazil, he has attracted the attention not only of academics across the broad spectrum of social sciences (from philosophy to pedagogy, sociology to literary criticism, political theory to social work), but also of activists and researchers interested in political and cultural issues. This notable presence in Brazil is largely due to the possibility, in many cases already realized, that Gramsci's main concepts—such as the expanded state, civil society, hegemony, war of position, passive revolution, national-popularism, etc.—help us understand important characteristics of Brazilian history and society.

During his lifetime, Gramsci never published a book. Before being arrested by fascism in 1926, he had already written numerous articles scattered throughout socialist and communist newspapers, most of them unsigned or written with pseudonyms. After his arrest, in addition to numerous letters to family members, Gramsci wrote approximately 2,500 pages dedicated to various topics, compiled into 29 school notebooks. After a certain point, he attempted to group together, in what he called "special notebooks," the notes dedicated to a single topic (philosophy, intellectuals, education, politics, literature, etc.), but this work remained incomplete. Therefore, the impression left on those who begin studying his work—all published posthumously—is that of a collection of fragments, from which it is only with some difficulty to grasp the common thread.

Gramsci's Reader is a quick-access tool for those who wish to begin studying the author's valuable theoretical contributions to the social sciences, but also a useful summary for those already initiated, who occasionally need to return to the central theses of his work. The volume is part of the Readers Collection, which aims to create a gateway to the work of fundamental theorists of social thought. Each volume consists of a selection of anthological texts by leading figures in global thought, organized by a Brazilian specialist. It also features an introductory text that includes a chronology, bibliography published in Brazil, selected fragments, and more.