Craig Gent: A comrade once said to me: "You know, in Italy, no one understands why Toni Negri is so popular in England." I thought of the books on my 'Italian communism' shelf and how many of them were authored by the political theorist, and how many of my comrades had similar shelves on their bookcases, but I didn't have an answer. After all, Negri didn't speak much English and I can't speak Italian. I've never even been to Italy. To this comrade, it made our apparent fascination with the radical Italian Marxism of the 1960s and 1970s all the more incredulous. Now, aged 90, Antonio Negri has died, and the question still stands. |