BOOK REVIEW 83 For my own peace of mind, I need to feel...that you understand... that I am...under political arrest and will be a political prisoner. I am not ashamed., nor will I ever be ashamed of this fact...I have always refused to compromise my ideas and am ready to die for them, not just to be put in prison. For this reason, I feel serene and satisfied with myself.7 And in a letter to his sister Teresina, Gramsci sums up his attitude to the ordeal of imprisonment he is going through: ^For me it (being in prison) represents one episode of a political battle that was being fought not only in Italy but in the whole world for who knows a long time. I was captured just as one is captured in wartime.538 This review is not the place to analyze Gramsci ^s contributions to the theory and practice of the workers'and democratic movements of our times. His ideas on the state, culture, ideology, education, intellectuals and so on have influenced a whole generation of Maixist thinkers and practising revolutionaries. For us the central message that emerges from this fine collection of letters is simply that the kind of indomitable political courage and solidarity with the working masses displayed by Gramsci in the face of fascist repression and torture is extremely relevant for the present-day world., which abounds in icpressive regimes from Chile to Brazil to Phillippines and elsewhere. RS 1 Prison Notebooks, International Publishers, New York 1972. 2 Letters,? 63. 8 Ibid., p 79. 4 Ibid., pp 136-137. 5 Ibid., p 267. 6 Ibid.,p 131. 7 Ibid., p 133. 8 Ibid,,p 121.