Antonio Gramsci needs no introduction. The anti-fascist political thinker is one of the most cited Italian authors — certainly the most cited Italian Marxist ever — and one of the most celebrated Marxist philosophers of the twentieth century.

Much of the fascination with Gramsci lies in the story of his life and premature death, torn between political struggle and intellectual commitment, imprisonment at the hands of Benito Mussolini and factory occupations, and in his unique status within the Marxist tradition. Gramsci left us thirty-three notebooks, handwritten in jail and filled with over two thousand reflections, annotations, allusions, and translations. The fragmentary nature of his works and the adventurous, even mysterious, fate of the notebooks’ recovery and publication by the Italian Communist Party (PCI) at the beginning of the Cold War also contribute to his enduring legend.