Acknowledged as one of the classics of twentieth-century Marxism, Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks provides an approach to class that extends beyond economic inequality to include other forms of inequality, such as those of race, gender, sexual orientation, and religion.

The author, Kate Crehan explains the understanding of inequality in Prison Notebooks, focusing in particular on Gramsci’s interrelated concepts of subalternity, intellectuals, and common sense, and putting them in relation to the work of thinkers such as Bourdieu, Arendt, Spivak, and Said.
The Gramscian concepts are clarified through case studies; for example, the idea of the organic individual is explained through a study of Adam Smith’s work, and Gramsci’s understanding of common sense is clarified through examining the political narratives associated with the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements in the U.S.

Gramsci’s Common Sense provides an accessible and useful introduction to a key Marxist thinker whose writings throw light on the twenty-first century’s increasing inequality. 

It will be invaluable for students and scholars of from a wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, political science, history, geography, and literary studies.

Kate Crehan is Professor Emerita, College of Staten Island and the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Preface
Abbreviations

Part I. Subalternity, Intellectuals, and Common Sense
1. Subalternity
2. Intellectuals
3. Common Sense
4. What Subalterns Know

Part II. Case Studies
5. Adam Smith: A Bourgeois, Organic Intellectual?
6. The Common Sense of the Tea Party
7. Common Sense, Good Sense, and Occupy

Conclusion. Reading Gramsci in the Twenty-First Century

Bibliography
Index