BOOK REVIEW 103
Focussing attention on the stimulating, if relatively unsystematised, prison writings of Gramsci, Finocchiaro has obviously allowed himself to be drawn into the thankless task of textual systematization with no feel whatsoever for the theoretical richness of Gramsci's prison notebooks. Lacking this intellectual sensitivity while evaluating the 'history of dialectical thought* is nothing short of disaster. Like Gramsci, Hegel, Marx and Croce among others, are denied a significant evaluation of their powerful impact on the history of modern thought.
Copious textual comparisons make only for tiresome reading as they conclude in statements as jarring as the following: 'Gramsci is a Crocean Marxist, whereas Croce is a Marxist of sorts.' Further the book is replete with phrases like, 'Gramsci. . . is trying to elaborate a dialectical concept of politics, that is a concept of dialectical politics.1 With some relief one reaches the concluding chapter only to encounter this •gem':
I hope that besides avoiding monotony, this (the dialectic of attitudes expressed in the chapter sequence) has avoided both confusion and disjointedness, and that it will create a dialectical interplay:
for and against Marxism, for and against Gramsci, for and against religion, for and against science, for and against the concept of politics, for and against the synthesis of theory and practice, for and against hermeneutics, for and against the dialectic itself.
Finocchiaro, it would appear, was at least aware of the pitfalls awaiting an enquiry such as his. The tragedy for the reader is that he systematically falls prey to each one of them.
Madhu Prasad Zakir Hussain College, Delhi University, Delhi.