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This is about as difficult a book as I can read anymore with my alarmingly deteriorated attention span. It took me awhile but I got through the important bits, and I can see why he's considered foundational to modern Marxism. This is the single best compliation of Gramsci's writing, and a must-read for any Marxist. Certain concepts like "hegemony" and "war of position/maneuver" are vital for any serious political scientist.

There's also quite a timely passage on political crisis (p.217-19):

At a certain point in their historical lives, social groups become detached from their traditional parties... the traditional parties... are no longer recognized by their class as its expression. When such crises occur, the immediate situation becomes delicate and dangerous, because the field is open for violent solutions, for the activities of unknown forces, represented by charismatic 'men of destiny'.

... In every country the process is different, although the content is the same. And the content is the crisis of the ruling class's hegemony, which occurs either because the ruling class has failed in some major political undertaking for which it has requested, or forcibly extracted, the consent of the broad masses (war, for example), or because huge masses... have passed suddenly from a state of political passivity to a certain activity, and put forward demands which... add up to a revolution. A 'crisis of authority' is spoken of: this is precisely the crisis of hegemony, or crisis of the state as a whole.

... the various strata of the population are not all capable of orienting themselves equally swiftly, or of reorganizing with the same rhythm. The traditional ruling class, which has numerous trained cadres, changes men and programs and, with greater speed than is achieved by the subordinate classes, reabsorbs the control that was slipping from its grasp. Perhaps it may make sacrifices, and expose itself to an uncertain future by demagogic promises; but it retains power, reinforces it for the time being, and uses it to crush its adversary and disperse his leading cadres, who cannot be very numerous or highly trained. The passage of the troops of many different parties under the banner of a single party, which better represents and resumes the needs of the entire class, is an organic and normal phenomenon, even if its rhythm is very swift... It represents the fusion of an entire social class under a single leadership, which alone is held to be capable of solving an overriding problem of its existence and of fending off a mortal danger. When the crisis does not find this organic solution, but that of the charismatic leader, it means that a static equilibrium exists... it means that no group, neither the conservatives nor the progressives, has the strength for victory, and that even the conservative group needs a master.

Yup, Gramsci clocked us.