Antonio Gramsci remains one of the most influential political thinkers of the early twentieth century. Arrested and imprisoned by the Italian Fascist regime for his socialist activities in 1926, in the solitary and debilitating conditions of Mussolini's jail he penned one of the most startling works of social and political theory - the Prison Notebooks (1929-1935) - that continues to challenge, intrigue and inspire its readers to this day. This book brings together some of the world's leading scholars on Gramsci to provide an engaging and accessible account of the main ideas, themes and debates in his writings, and to critically explore their relevance for contemporary social and political theory. Among the key themes examined in the book are Gramsci's very influential accounts of state formation, hegemony and ideology, which are explored in relation to contemporary Marxism, the liberal tradition, democratic theory, subaltern studies and post-Marxism.--