About 

In 1929, Antonio Gramsci, an Italian political theorist and founding member of the Communist Party of Italy (PCI), was sentenced to twenty years in prison by the Italian fascist state. During his trial, the prosecutor famously said "We have to stop this brain working for twenty years." Although they managed to imprison Gramsci, they did not stop his brain from working. For the next six years, Gramsci wrote a collection of notebooks that would prove to be a classic in political theory. 

This collection, commonly called The Prison Notebooks, spans over 2,300 pages. It is not an abstract treatise that directly addresses political concepts. It is a practical manual that attempts to explain why the socialist movements of the Interwar Period failed, and how future socialist movements could succeed. In writing this manual, Gramsci redeveloped key political concepts such as hegemony, the state, and the intellectual, into wholly new ideas. It is in this regard that The Prison Notebooks can be described as a classic, as it is a work that helps us understand the past as well as chart out a path to the future. 

The purpose of this website is to explain some of the core concepts of the Prison Notebooks, as well as how these concepts can be used to interpret different political and historical events. Furthermore, this website seeks too show how the influence of Gramsci's ideas goes well beyond Italy and the political left. Since the publishing of the notebooks, figures on both the left and right have used The Prison Notebooks to interpret historical processes as well as influence contemporary politics.