Andy Merrifield, “Gramsci and his friend ‘S’“

A post exploring the generational links between Merrifield, David Harvey, Piero Sraffa and Antonio Gramsci.

I was in New York recently, where I once lived, some twenty-years back, there to visit my old friend and mentor, my old university teacher—and now he is old—an 88-year-old David Harvey, the world-renowned Marx scholar. I hadn’t seen him for a while and was keen to catch up, to hear his news and tell him some of my own, about my life in Rome, about my work on Gramsci. Ever so brilliant, it’s good to get some tips from David, some inspiration, a little encouragement, as well as a bit of critical feedback.  As usual, too, in his company, we did a lot of talking and eating, some drinking, and together we rode the East River ferry over to Brooklyn and back, just for the fun of it, on a bitterly cold afternoon. It’s one of David’s favorite Big Apple past times; he does it alone most days; during Covid lockdowns, he said, it was an al fresco lifeline. [continues here]