John Cammett, Antonio Gramsci, and anthropology

Abstract

The Marxist historian and Gramsci scholar John Cammett died on July 30, 2008. He was 81 years old. Cammett introduced the writings and theoretical concepts of Antonio Gramsci to English-language readers at a crucial moment in the history of the United States left. His book, Antonio Gramsci and the Origins of Italian Communism (1967) traced Gramsci's political activism and theoretical contributions to the formation of the Communist Party of Italy. Previously, in 1957, Carl Marzani published The Open Marxism of Antonio Gramsci and International Publishers brought out "The modern prince" and Other Essays (Gramsci 1957). However, these last two volumes were published during the McCarthy era, a time when Marxism of all sorts was on the defensive in the United States. By 1967 the cultural terrain and political discourse in the United States had shifted dramatically in response to the upsurge of the Civil Rights, antiVietnam War, and student movements. Gramsci's ideas, made accessible by Cammett's scholarship, have had a profound impact on activists and scholars concerned with social change over the next 40 years. John Cammett was born July 8, 1927. After serving in the U.S. Navy in WWII, (1945-1947) Cammett returned to the United States where he was active in the social movements of the political left and trade unions. He obtained a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Italy (1950-1951) where he was introduced to the Communist Party of Italy (PCI) and through these relationships, to the work of Antonio Gramsci, who had been a founder of the PCI. These connections provided the basis for Cammett's doctoral dissertation at Columbia University, which in turn became the basis for his 1967 book.