Knowra Antonio Gramsci Antonio Gramsci Antonio Gramsci was an Italian Marxist philosopher, journalist, and political leader whose prison writings analyzed how ruling groups maintain power through cultural and political institutions.
Cultural hegemony : The maintenance of social leadership when subordinate groups accept, or participate in, a dominant group’s worldview. This is Gramsci’s central account of how ruling groups secure consent beyond direct force.
War of position : A prolonged struggle to build influence within institutions and civil society before pursuing political power. Gramsci contrasted this strategy with a direct assault on state power in societies with resilient institutions.
Sardinia : An island in the western Mediterranean and an autonomous region of Italy. Gramsci’s childhood in Sardinia informed his attention to regional inequality and the divide between north and south.
Palmiro Togliatti : An Italian communist politician who led the Italian Communist Party for much of the postwar period. Togliatti worked with Gramsci and later helped shape how his writings were published and interpreted.
Stuart Hall : A Jamaican-born British cultural theorist and sociologist associated with the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. Hall adapted Gramscian hegemony to analyze media, race, identity, and political struggle.
Historical materialism : A method of interpreting social change through material conditions, production, and conflict between social classes. Gramsci reshaped this Marxist approach by examining culture and political organization alongside economic structure.
War of manoeuvre : A direct, rapid political offensive aimed at capturing state power. Gramsci used it as a contrast to the slower struggle required where civil society is strongly organized.
Italian Socialist Party : A socialist political party founded in Italy in 1892. Gramsci entered national politics through the party before helping form a communist organization.
Piero Sraffa : An Italian economist whose work challenged neoclassical theories of value and distribution. Sraffa maintained contact with Gramsci in prison and helped facilitate correspondence with his family.
Cultural studies : An interdisciplinary field examining how culture, power, identity, and everyday practices shape social life. Gramsci’s account of culture and power became a major resource for the field.
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