‘Now Is the Time of Monsters’

In ancient Rome, interregnum was the term given to the period between stable governments when anything untoward might occur, and sometimes did – civil unrest, warfare between warlords, power vacuums and, finally, succession wars. But eventually the dust would settle and the victors, whoever they might be, would at some point restabilise the empire, often with a new map, showing the latest lines of geographic possession.

In 1929, the Italian Antonio Gramsci was in a fascist prison, writing about ...