What is to be Done?

Louis Althusser (1918-1990) was a leading Marxist philosopher and an influential figure in the French Communist Party.  He taught philosophy for many years at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and his many books include History and Imperialism, For Marx, Reading Capital (with Étienne Balibar and others) and Lenin and Philosophy.

• Acknowledgements vii Note on the Text ix1 The ‘What’ in ‘What Is To Be Done?’ 12 The Absolute Empiricism of Antonio Gramsci 253 Gramsci or Machiavelli? 604 Gramsci, Eurocommunism, Class Dictatorship 76Notes 82Index 97

"There can be no doubt that What Is To Be Done? stands as an important building block in Althusser’s understanding of political theory and as a central text for exploring his divergence with historicism. By analyzing the concept of hegemony as an inflated concept which replaces that of class domination and class dictatorship, this book constitutes an important contribution for current debates surrounding Althusser and Gramsci’s theoretical production, but also for the broader field of contemporary debates concerning the concept of hegemony and political strategy." Marx & Philosophy Review of Books