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Hegemony and Power: On the Relation Between Gramsci and Machiavelli, by Benedetto Fontana. Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. $44.95; paper, $16.95. Pp. viii, 226.
This excellent work is the first book-length study on the relation between Gramsci and Machiavelli to be published in English. While there are several article-length pieces on this subject, and comparisons of Gramsci's theory of the "modern prince" with Machiavelli's "new prince" are quite common, most studies consider the relation as mediated by the figure of Lenin and by the Soviet revolutionary experience. Fontana proposes to relate Gramsci to Machiavelli "in order to discover whether Gramsci is himself faithful to the direction and substance of Machiavelli's works" (4). Fontana's aim is twofold: first, to examine Gramsci's interpretation of Machiavelli in contrast mainly to the liberal interpretation articulated by Benedetto Croce; and, second, to compare the major Machiavellian ideas (such as virtu/fortuna, the nature of political knowledge, the new principality, the concept of a people, the relation between thought and action, force and consent, etc.) to Gramsci's theory of hegemony (and to the related notions, e.g., of moral and intellectual reform, the integral state, and the organic intellectual) (4). Since Gramsci claims that his own concept of the "modern prince" is a translation of Machiavelli's thought into modern political language, it is a very important and interesting question how Machiavelli's thought can be assimilated into Marxist theory. While this book is about the Gramsci-Machiavelli relation, it is also about the Gramsci-Croce relation, and the Croce-Machiavelli relation. Fontana...