Gramsci and the Colonial Question: Sardinia, Subalternity, and the Global South (Marx and Marxisms)

Although Antonio Gramsci is widely known as the theorist of hegemony, his enduring relevance to struggles against colonial oppression across the Global South reveals a deeper, often overlooked dimension of his thought. With this book, Gianni Fresu explores Gramsci’s formative experiences in Sardinia, a peripheral, peasant island marked by internal colonialism, and shows how these shaped his vision of human emancipation as both a continuation and critique of bourgeois universalism.

Through a rigorous engagement with Gramsci’s writings, Fresu reexamines key categories of Marxist theory, situating them within the socio-political contradictions of Sardinia and the broader Italian national formation. He argues that Gramsci’s philosophy of praxis, conceived as absolute historicism, offers a powerful framework for understanding the dialectic between civil and political society, liberalism and socialism, and the transformation of modern power structures.

Divided into three interrelated sections (the Colonial Question, the Liberal Question, and Questions of Political Theory) Gramsci and the Colonial Question provides a fresh and interdisciplinary perspective on Gramsci’s legacy. It challenges dominant interpretations that marginalize Sardinian history and offers new insights into the conceptual renewal of Marxism, making it essential reading for scholars in political theory, students of postcolonial studies, Italian history, and Gramscian thought.

Gianni Fresu, Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Cagliari, PhD in Philosophy from the University of Urbino ‘Carlo Bò’, was Professor of Political Philosophy at the Federal University of Uberlândia (MG/Brazil) from 2016 to 2023. He is a founding member of the International Gramsci Society Brasil, of which he was President from September 2019 to September 2022, director of the interdepartmental centre for Gramscian studies “GramsciLab” and of the Antonio Gramsci International Bibliographic Fund at the University of Cagliari. He is the author of several monographs and essays in Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and English in the field of political philosophy and the history of political thought on the themes of the philosophy of praxis.