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COMMON SENSE: Gramsci used the term common sense to mean widely accepted
popular opinions or prejudices about life and reality. Another way of
putting it, is that common sense is the popular world-view or philosophy
of life of the working masses. Common sense and folklore are closely
related concepts for Gramsci, common sense being "philosophical
folklore". Both are contradictory mixes of reactionary and progressive
ideas of reality held by the masses. To build a new socialist culture
both the italian masses and intellectuals would have to go thru a long
process of self-criticism and self-change. Studying popular common sense
and folklore is critical to this process.
In two passages in the Modern Prince Gramsci defined common sense as the
masses' : "traditonal conception of the world" p.197, SPN and:
"....sponaneous feelings of the masses? ("spontaneous" in the sense that
they are not the result of any systematic educational activity on the
part of an already conscious leading group, but have been formed through
everyday experience illuminated by "common sense", i.e., by the
traditional popular conception of the world....." p.198-9, SPN
For the best discussion of common sense see Gramsci's long essay,
Introduction to the study of Philosophy and Culture, Some Preliminary
points of Reference, reprinted in SPN pp. 323-43, see pp.325-334 in
particular.
HEGEMONY: According to Gramsci, to hold power a ruling class must
achieve hegemony over society, meaning its political, intellectual and
moral authority or leadership must be predominant. Gramsci says that a
new ruling class takes and holds state power by establishing hegemony
over allied classes and by using force or coercion against antagonistic
ones.
In several Prison Notes the State is defined as "Hegemony +
dictatorship" or "State= political society+ civil society, ( in other
words hegemony protected by the armor of coercion )" . Again elsewhere
in the Notes he says: " ...by State should be understood not only
apparatus of government, but also the 'private' apparatus of 'hegemony'
or civil society."
To Gramsci hegemony means rule by consent, rule by moral and
intellectual authority or leadership. In his 1926 draft essay ,"On the
Southern Question" Gramsci refers to the hegemony of the proletariat and
defines it as the "social basis of the proletarian dictatorship and of
the workers State" . He goes on to explain this "social basis" ": "the
proletariat can become the leading and the dominant class to the extent
that it succeeds in creating a system of class alliances which allows it
to mobilize the majority of the working population against Capitalism
and the bourgeois State.....this means to the extent that it succeeds in
gaining the consent of the broad peasant masses..." p. 443 ANTONIO
GRAMSCI Selections from Political Writings V.2
Hegemonic apparatus , Gramsci says schools are the key institution of
the hegemonic apparatus, but the term is also used to mean "private
initiatives and activities" and private associations such as trade
unions and political parties.
Gramsci attributes the development of the concept of hegemony to Lenin
and Benedetto Croce, the Italian liberal historian and philosopher.
Antonio Labriola, the father of Italian marxism also used the term
often.
INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL REFORM: Italian cultural revolution led by the
Modern Prince. a mass working class struggle to replace the existing
catholic mass culture and idealist philosophy of bourgeois liberal
intellectuals of early 20th century Italy with a modern, secular
socialist proletarian culture; i.e. to make Italy a culturally unified
nation for the first time.
Main aim of this reform is to replace the authoritarian feudal catholic
world-view of working masses with an egalitarian communist, that is,
proletarian world-view. Intellectual and moral reform, the struggle for
a new socialist way of living, thinking and feeling, new proletarian
philosphy, history, art, politics is "linked to a program of economic
reform"(p.133 SPN) in fact, economic reform is the concrete form in
which working classs cultural revolution first presents itself. Gramsci
insists that the workers must take control of the State and Production
before they can complete their cultural revolution. Intellectual
andMoral Reform is the struggle for workers cultural and political
hegemony over Italy. p.132-3 SPN
JACOBINISM: it has dual meaning for Gramsci: 1. revolutionary
nationalism. 2.Armed revolution, insurrection, a violent, radical break
with the old ruling class and their social order. the two historical
examples Gramsci refers to repeatedly in his Notes are the French and
Russian Revolutions. The revolutionary bourgeoisie in 18th century
France were Jacobins. they formed a revolutionary alliance with the
peasantry to overthrow the feudal order in France in 1789. Lenin and
Marx identified strongly with the radical, intransigent, "jacobin"
spirit of the french revolutionary bourgeoisie; their willingness to use
violence to overthrow the old ruling classes and totally uproot
feudalism.
Gramsci called Machiavelli a "precocious jacobin" because he sought thru
his writing of The Prince , to create a revolutionary-nationalist mass
movement in 16th century renaissance northern Italy based on the
peasantry and urban petty bourgeoisie. Gramsci believed Machiavelli's
political goal was to free all of Northern Italy from foreign occupation
and create a unified Italian State. Gramsci strenuously argued in his
notes on the Risorgimento ( Italy's 19th century national independence
movement) that a "Jacobin force", a revolutionary bourgeoisie and a
radical, intransigent spirit of jacobinism among the bourgeois
intellectuals was totally absent in Italy in the 16 to 19th cenuries and
prevented Italy from being united and becoming a modern capitalist
nation-state. Italy's continued backwardness in in the early 20th
century was due, according to Gramsci to the failure of italian
bourgeois intellectuals to build a revolutionary alliace with italian
workers and peasants during the Risorgimento. Only italian workers and
revolutionary intellectuals led by the italian communist party could
now(1930's Italy) be an effective jacobin force , or leadership, and
create a national-popular collectve will , a revolutionary movement in
Italy.
MODERN PRINCE : is the Italian Communist party, also title of a planned
essay containing Gramsci's political program, to be written in the form
of a dramatic myth using Machiavelli'sPrince as a literary model.
Description to be found in Prison Note titled Brief Notes on
Machiavelli"s politics .,p.125-33 SPN
Modern Prince to consist of three sections on 1) Jacobinism, 2)
formation of a National-Popular Collective Will and 3) Intellectual and
Moral reform ( ".... the religious question or world-view" p.132, SPN)
NATIONAL-POPULAR COLLECTIVE WILL : Gramsci's conception of a
revolutionary nationalist movement that would make socialist revolution
in Italy; to be led by the Modern Prince, the Italian Communist party, .
A class alliance of northern industrial workers , southern peasants and
democratic middle class intellectuals, the main insurrectionary force
being the southern peasantry. the creation by these social forces of a
revolutionary nationalist and socialist culture to culturally and
politically unify Italy thru cultural revolution or " Intellectual and
Moral Reform". p.130-1, SPN
PASSIVE REVOLUTION: "Revolution" that is really a reform from above by
an elite without mass participation aimed at avoiding radical social
change. Fascism, the Risorgimento, Italy's 19th century national
independence movement and "americanism and Fordism", i.e. the 30's New
Deal reforms of U.S. capitalism are examples of passive revolution
according to Gramsci. Passive Revolution is a counter-revolutionary,
restorationist historical movement aimed at avoiding or reversing
revolutionary change. Gramsci criticized Croce for writing histories of
Europe and Italy that defend passive revolution-restoration
ideologically, and attack Jacobin National- Popular movements like the
French and Russian revolutions.
Gramsci advances his theory of the Risorgimento and Fascism as passive
revolutions in an important series of prison notes on italian history.
One of his most damning criticisms of Croce, was that though a liberal
political opponent of Fascism, Croce as passive revolution's major
ideological proponent was, in effect, giving Fascism historical and
philosophical legitimacy and support. Gramsci called fascism false
national-popularism, and degenerated jacobinism as well as passive
revolution. This clearly shows that he saw italian fascism's demogogic
claims to be revolutionary as particularly dangerous to the Left and the
italian working class
two excellent papers on the critical reception of Gramsci in Germany and
Russia by Ursula Aptitzsch and Viktor Gajduk, who spoke respectively on
the German critical edition of the Letters from Prison and on the
tormented history of censorship, selective editing and translating, and
politically motivated publishing that marked the history of Gramsci
studies in the Soviet Union, and that still today limit to a certain
extent a full comprehension of Gramsci's historic achievement.
Welcome to the official web site of the International Gramsci Society,
where you will find resources on the life and work of Antonio Gramsci
(1891-1937), the Italian socialist, political theorist, and activist.
We recently re-designed and expanded our web site. As you can see, not
all of the web pages listed in the menu are available, but they will
become available as time permits. Please feel free to explore our site
and send us any suggestions.
The IGS web site includes a biography and chronology of Antonio
Gramsci's life, an archive of photographs and documents related to his
life and work, as well as links to his writings.
In addition, the IGS web site includes academic and authoritative
on-line essays and articles on Gramscian studies and concepts related to
Antonio Gramsci's work, as well as electronic versions of the IGS
Newsletters.
Issues of the International Gramsci Society Newsletter are available on
this site in both an online searchable HTML format and as downloadable
Adobe Acrobat Reader (.pdf) files.
James Martin (ed.). Antonio Gramsci: Critical Assessments, 4 vols. (New
York and London: Routledge, 2002).
This four volume publication is a collection of eighty essays and
articles, mostly collected from academic journals, spanning a period
from 1960 to 1998 on the life and work of Antonio Gramsci. This
collection is organized around a series of critical commentaries on
various aspects of Gramscian topics and concepts. Most of the articles
were previously published in English, but some Italian articles appear
here in English for the first time.
Unfortunately, this tremendously useful collection of articles and
essays is exceedingly expensive. Considering the price of US$735.00 for
the four volume set, students, Gramsci scholars, and even some
universities may find it difficult to purchase this publication for
their libraries. Click here for a list of the contents.
Title: Antonio Gramsci: Critical Assessments
Edited by: James Martin
Publisher: Routledge: New York and London
Series: Critical Assessments of Leading Political Philosophers
ISBN: 0415217474
Pub date: 2002 (09 NOV 2001)
Extent: 1880 pages, 4 Volume Set
Price: US$735.00
CONTENTS:
VOLUME 1: INTELLECTUAL AND POLITICAL CONTEXT
General introduction by James Martin
PART 1: The Young Gramsci
1. Carl Levy; A New Look at the Young Gramsci; boundary 2 [1986]
2. Robert S. Dombroski; On Gramsci's Theatre Criticism; boundary 2
[1986]
3. Paolo Spriano; Gramsci and Gobetti; Studi storici [1976]
PART 2: Intellectual and Political Influences
4. Norberto Bobbio; Gramsci and Italian Political Culture; Belfagor
[1978]
5. Paul Piccone, From Spaventa to Gramsci; Telos [1977]
6. Richard Bellamy; Gramsci, Croce and the Italian Political Tradition;
History of Political Thought [1990]
7. Darrow Schecter; Two Views of the Revolution: Gramsci and Sorel,
1916-1920; History of European Ideas [1990]
8. Alistair Davidson; Gramsci and Lenin 1917-1922; The Socialist
Register [1974]
PART 3: The Factory Council Struggles, 1919-1920
9. Thomas R. Bates; Antonio Gramsci and the Soviet Experiment in Italy;
Societas [1974]
10. Piero Gobetti, A History of the Turin Communists Written by a
Liberal; La Rivoluzione Liberale [1922]
11. Darrow Schecter, Gramsci, Gentile and the Theory of the Ethical
State in Italy; History of Political Thought [1990]
12. Franklin Adler, Factory Councils, Gramsci and the Industrialists;
Telos [1977]
13. Enzo Rutigliano; The Ideology of Labour and Capitalist Rationality
in Gramsci; Telos [1977]
PART 4: Communism and Fascism
14. Thomas R. Bates; Antonio Gramsci and the Bolshevization of the PCI;
Journal of Contemporary History [1976]
15. Walter L. Adamson; Towards the Prison Notebooks: The Evolution of
Gramsci's Thinking on Political Organization 1918-1926; Polity [1979]
16. Frank Rosengarten; The Gramsci-Trotsky Question (1922-1932); Social
Text [1984/85]
17. Walter L. Adamson; Gramsci's Interpretation of Fascism; Journal of
the History of Ideas [1980]
VOLUME 2: MARXISM, PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICS
PART 1: Marxism as a Philosophy of Praxis
18. John Merrington; Theory and Practice in Gramsci's Marxism; Socialist
Register [1968]
19. Paul Piccone; Gramsci's Hegelian Marxism; Political Theory [1974]
20. Gershon Shafir; Interpretive Sociology and the Philosophy of Praxis:
Comparing Max Weber and Antonio Gramsci; Praxis International [1985]
21. Benedetto Fontana; The Concept of Nature in Gramsci; The
Philosophical Forum [1996]
22. D. P. Dimikratos; Gramsci and the Contemporary Debate on Marxism;
Philosophy of the Social Sciences [1986]
PART 2: Gramsci's 'Anti-Croce'
23. B. L. Kahn; Antonio Gramsci's Reformulation of Bendetto Croce's
Speculative Idealism; Idealistic Studies [1985]
24. Maurice A. Finocchiaro; Gramsci's Crocean Marxism; Telos [1979]
PART 3: Epistemology and Science
25. Richard D. Wolff; Gramsci, Marxism and Philosophy; Rethinking
Marxism [1989]
26. Thomas Nemeth; Gramsci's Concept of Constitution; Philosophy and
Social Criticism [1978]
27. Maurice A. Finocchiaro; Science and Praxis in Gramsci's Critique of
Bukharin; Philosophy and Social Criticism [1979]
28. Esteve Morera; Gramsci's Realism; Science and Society [1989]
PART 4: The Concept of Hegemony
29. G. A. Williams; The Concept of Egemonia in the Thought of Antonio
Gramsci: Some Notes on Interpretation; Journal of the History of Ideas
[1960]
30. Thomas R. Bates; Gramsci and the Theory of Hegemony; Journal of the
History of Ideas [1975]
31. Joseph V. Femia; Hegemony and Consciousness in the Thought of
Antonio Gramsci; Political Studies [1975]
32. Chantal Mouffe; Hegemony and Ideology in Gramsci; Research in
Political Economy [1978]
33. Peter Ives; The Grammar of Hegemony; Left History [1997]
PART 5: State and Civil Society
34. Perry Anderson; The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci; New Left Review
[1976-7]
35. Anne Showstack Sassoon; Gramsci's Subversion of the Language of
Politics; Rethinking Marxism [1990]
36. Joseph A. Buttigieg; Gramsci on Civil Society; boundary 2 [1995]
37. Geoffrey Hunt; Gramsci, Civil Society and Bureaucracy; Praxis
International [1986]
38. Geoffrey Hunt; Gramsci's Marxism and the Concept of Homo
Oeconomicus;International Studies in Philosophy [1985]
39. Walter L. Adamson; Gramsci and the Politics of Civil Society; Praxis
International, [1987-88]
VOLUME 3: INTELLECTUALS, CULTURE AND THE PARTY
PART 1: The Theory of Intellectuals
40. Jerome Karabel; Revolutionary Contradictions: Antonio Gramsci and
the Problem of Intellectuals; Politics and Society [1976]
41. Nigel Todd; Ideological Superstructures in Gramsci and Mao Tse-Tung;
Journal of the History of Ideas [1974]
42. Leonardo Salamini; Towards a Sociology of Intellectuals: a
Structural Analysis of Gramsci's Marxist; Theory Sociological Analysis
and Theory [1976]
43. Anne Showstack Sassoon; The People, Intellectuals and Specialized
Knowledge; boundary 2 [1986]
44. James Martin; Between Ethics and Politics: Gramsci's Theory of
Intellectuals; Modern Italy [1998]
PART 2: Culture and Language
45. Margaret L. King; The Social Role of Intellectuals: Antonio Gramsci
and the Italian Rennaisance; Soundings [1978]
46. Marcia Landy; Culture and Politics in the Work of Antonio Gramsci;
boundary 2 [1986]
47. William Q. Boelhower; Antonio Gramsci's Sociology of Literature;
Contemporary Literature [1981]
48. Peter Ives; A Grammatical Introduction to Gramsci's Political
Theory; Rethinking Marxism [1998]
49. Craig Brandist; The Official and the Popular in Gramsci and Bakhtin;
Theory, Culture & Society [1996]
PART 3: On Education
50. Harold Entwistle; Antonio Gramsci and the School as Hegemonic;
Educational Theory [1978]
51. Philip Simpson; The Whalebone in the Corset: Gramsci on Education,
Culture and Change; Screen Education [1978]
52. Walter L. Adamson; Beyond 'Reform or Revolution': Notes on Political
Education in Gramsci, Habermas and Arendt; Theory and Society [1978]
PART 4: The Politics of Subalternity
53. Nadia Urbinati; From the Periphery of Modernity: Antonio Gramsci's
Theory of Subordination and Hegemony; Political Theory [1998]
54. G. Turnatori; and G. Lodi Classes in Southern Italy: Salvemini's,
Dorso's and Gramsci's Analyses; International Journal of Sociology
[1974]
55. Alistair Davidson; Gramsci, the Peasantry and Popular Culture; The
Journal of Peasant Studies [1984]
PART 5: Gramsci and the Communist Party
56. Federico Mancini and Giorgio Galli; Gramsci's Presence; Government
and Opposition [1968]
57. Stephen White; Gramsci and the Italian Communist Party; Government
and Opposition [1972]
58. Paul Piccone; Gramsci's Marxism: Beyond Lenin and Togliatti; Theory
and Society [1976]
59. Maurice A. Finocchiaro; Gramsci: an Alternative Communism?; Studies
in Soviet Thought [1984]
60. Joseph V. Femia; Gramsci, the Via Italiana and the Classical
Marxist-Leninist Approach to Revolution; Government and Opposition
[1979]
61. Peter Gibbon; Gramsci, Eurcommunism and the Comintern; Economy and
Society [1983]
VOLUME 4: CONTEMPORARY APPLICATIONS
PART 1: Reviews and Commentaries
62. Alistair Davidson; The Varying Seasons of Gramscian Studies;
Political Studies [1972]
63. G. Eley; Reading Gramsci in English: Observations on the Reception
of Gramsci in the English Speaking World 1957-82; European History
Quarterly [1984]
64. David Forgacs; Gramsci and Marxism in Britain; New Left Review
[1989]
65. Chantal Mouffe and Anne Showstack; Sassoon Gramsci in France and
Italy: a Review of the Literature; Economy and Society [1977]
66. Joseph V. Femia; The Gramsci Phenomenon: Some Reflections; Political
Studies [1979]
PART 2: Political Theory
67. Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe; Recasting Marxism: Hegemony and
New Political Movements; Socialist Review [1982]
68. John Rosenthal; Who Practices Hegemony? Class Division and the
Subject of Politics; Cultural Critique [1988]
69. Esteve Morera; Gramsci and Democracy; Canadian Journal of Political
Science [1990]
70. Richard Bellamy; Gramsci and Walzer on the Intellectual as Social
Critic; The Philosophical Forum [1998]
PART 3: Political Analysis
71. Heather Jon Maroney; Using Gramsci for Women: Feminism and the
Quebec State, 1960-1980; Resources for Feminism [1988]
72. Stuart Hall; Gramsci and Us; Marxism Today [1987]
73. J. Girling; Thailand in Gramscian Perspective; Pacific Affairs
[1984]
74. Robert Fatton; Gramsci and the Legitimization of the State: the Case
of the Senegalese Passive Revolution; Canadian Journal of Political
Science [1986]
PART 4: Cultural Studies
75. Stuart Hall; Gramsci's Relevance for the Study of Race and
Ethnicity; Journal of Communication Inquiry [1986]
76. Colin Mercer; After Gramsci; Screen Education [1980]
77. T. J. Jackson Lears; The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and
Possibilities; American Historical Review [1985]
PART 5: International Relations Theory
78. Robert W. Cox; Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: an
Essay on Method; Millennium: Journal of International Studies [1983]
79. Randall D. Germain and Michael Kenny; Engaging Gramsci:
International Relations Theory and the New Gramscians; Review of
International Studies [1998]
80. Craig M. Murphy; Understanding IR: Understanding Gramsci; Review of
International Studies [1998]
----------
Jeremy Lester. Dialogue of Negation. Debates on Hegemony in Russia and
the West. London: Pluto Press, 2000.
I
n his preface, Jeremy Lester describes his study as "first and foremost
a historical and conceptual analysis of hegemony;" and then hastens to
add that "it is written in the desire to restore the very specific
Gramscian-Marxist interpretation and usage of hegemony--and more
crucially in the current climate, counter-hegemony--to center stage."
This excellent work constitutes a much needed corrective to the
countless misuses and abuses of the term "hegemony" in current
theoretical, political, and critical discourse. While the analysis of
Gramsci's concept rests at the heart of the book, Lester has much else
to offer--particularly noteworthy are his accounts of the pre-Gramscian
genealogy of the concept of "hegemony" and of the debates on Gramsci's
concept (and associated political ideas) in Soviet Russia.[END PAGE 58]
CONTENTS:
Preface
Introduction: Hegemony and the Project of Modernity
Chapt. 1: The Russian Origins of Hegemony
Chapt. 2: The Gramscian Legacy
Chapt. 3: From Monologue to Dialogue: Gramsci's Reception in Soviet
Russia
Chapt. 4: Post-Gramscian Debates on Hegemony in the West
Chapt. 5: Does Hegemony Have a Postmodern Future?
Conclusion; The Hegemonic Landscape After the Battle
-------------------
International Gramsci Society Newsletter
Number 7 (May, 1997): 13-21 < prev | toc | next >
> translate
Gramsci and the Twentieth Century: An International Conference:
Cagliari, April 1997
Frank Rosengarten
A four-day international Conference on "Gramsci and the Twentieth
Century" was held in Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia,
From Russia: Viktor Petrovic Gajduk, Irina Vladimirovna Grigoreva.
-------------
International Gramsci Society Newsletter
Number 10 (March, 2000): 15-16 < prev | tofc | next >
> translate
Gramsci on CD-ROM
Classics in Politics: Antonio Gramsci (London: ElecBooks, 1999)
Marcus Green (York University, Canada)
English reading Gramsci scholars should be pleased to know that nearly
all of the English translations of Gramsci's writings have recently
become available in digital form. Last year ElecBook Classics, in
association with Lawrence and Wishart, published six major Gramscian
texts on a single CD-ROM. The CD-ROM includes, Selections from Political
Writings 1910-1920, Selections from Political Writings 1921-1926,
Selections from the Prison Notebooks, Further Selections from the Prison
Notebooks, Selections from Cultural Writings, and Roger Simonis
Gramsci's Political Thought: An Introduction. All of the texts are
complete, unabridged versions, produced in the Adobe Acrobat format.
There is no doubt that this will become an important research tool for
Gramscian scholars. With the texts in the Acrobat format, a user can
view, search, and print each text or portions of each text. There is no
longer any need to consult an index. The "Find" tool within Acrobat
works very well. A user just needs to type in a word or term and Acrobat
will find every instance in which the word or term appears. For example,
if you want to find every instance in which Gramsci discusses Manzoni,
you just need to click on the "find" tool, type in "Manzoni," and
Acrobat will do the rest of the work. Acrobat also offers cut, copy, and
paste functions. This means that it is possible to highlight a certain
amount of text with your mouse, copy it, and then paste it in a
different document. For example, if you are writing a paper and want to
quote a lengthy amount of text, you just need to copy the text from
Acrobat and paste it in your word processor.
ElecBooks has done a nice job of presenting and organizing the texts.
The texts are composed in a nice looking font that is easy to read and
is adjustable to different sizes. It is possible to view one complete
page on the screen, in which the font is small, and it is possible to
adjust the size of the page, making the size of the font larger or
smaller. All of the texts are organized in a "library," which easily
allows a user to switch from book to book and to choose different
sections and chapters within a book. Unfortunately, however, the page
numbers within the electronic books do not correspond to the page
numbers within the original paper bound books. [END PAGE 15] For
example, in the original paper edition of Further Selections from the
Prison Notebooks, edited by Derek Boothman, the section on "The
Philosophy of Benedetto Croce" begins on page 362, whereas in the
electronic version of the book the same section begins on page 516. This
can be somewhat of an inconvenience if one wants to make references from
the electronic book to the actual book. This can also be a problem if
one wants to quote the text and only has access to the electronic
version. Although the electronic version is convenient to use, I believe
the actual books will continue to be the most common forms of reference.
The only other problem with the CD-ROM is the artwork. At the beginning
of each electronic text, there is a title page with an image of Gramsci
superimposed over another image, and in five out of the six instances
Gramsci's image is superimposed over fascist or Soviet imagery. For
example, on the title page of the Selections from the Prison Notebooks,
Gramsci's image is superimposed over a picture of Mussolini and Hitler
giving the Nazi salute. Although Gramsci lived during a period of
fascism and Stalinism, he was clearly not a fascist or Stalinist, and
the artwork on the CD-ROM may give the viewer a different impression.
ElecBooks could have chosen more appropriate artwork or just copied the
covers from the original books.
ElecBooks has also done a nice job of making the CD-ROM compatible with
all major computer systems. The Adobe Acrobat files can be viewed on
Windows 3.1/95/98/NT, Macintosh, and Unix systems, and ElecBooks has
included the Adobe Acrobat program for each system on the CD-ROM. So if
you do not have Acrobat on your computer, there is no need worry, the
CD-ROM comes with it.
Hopefully other publishers of Gramsci's writings will take notice of
this publication and produce similar CD-ROMs. The possibilities for such
projects are endless. Given that a single CD- ROM can store up to 650
megabytes of information, it is possible to fit all of Gramsci's
pre-prison writings, prison notebooks, and letters in both Italian and
English all on one CD-ROM.
The Gramsci CD-ROM is normally priced at $49.95 (?29.95), but it is
currently on sale for $39.95 (?24.95). In order to ensure the special
price, IGS members should mention the International Gramsci Society in
their orders.
ElecBooks Classics, 20 Cambridge Drive; London, SE12 8AJ, UK
Also available on the web: http://www.elecbook.com/
---------
