Michael Parenti, born on this day in 1933, is a Marxist American political scientist and cultural critic. He has taught at American and international universities and has been a guest lecturer before campus and community audiences.
Michael Parenti was raised by an Italian-American working-class family in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York City. After graduating from high school, Parenti worked for several years. Upon returning to school, he received a BA from the City College of New York, an MA from Brown University and a PhD in political science from Yale University.
For many years Parenti taught political and social science at various institutions of higher learning. Eventually he devoted himself full-time to writing, public speaking, and political activism. He is the author of 20 books and over 300 articles.
Parenti’s writings cover a wide range of subjects: U.S. politics, culture, ideology, political economy, imperialism, fascism, communism, democratic socialism, free-market orthodoxies, conservative judicial activism, religion, ancient history, modern history, historiography, repression in academia, news and entertainment media, technology, environmentalism, sexism, racism, Venezuela, the wars in Iraq and Yugoslavia, ethnicity, and his own early life.
His book Democracy for the Few, now in its ninth edition, is a critical analysis of U.S. society, economy, and political institutions and a college-level political science textbook published by Wadsworth Publishing. His book Blackshirts and Reds defended the Soviet Union and socialist states of the 20th century from criticism, arguing that they were morally superior compared to capitalist states, that the problems of the Soviet Union were caused by the Russian Civil War and capitalist interference, and that “Left anti-Communist” and “pure socialist” critics have failed to offer any alternatives to the Soviet Union’s “siege socialism”
In 1974, Parenti ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in Vermont as the candidate of the democratic socialist Liberty Union Party; he came in third place, with 7.1% of the vote. Parenti was once a friend of Bernie Sanders, but he later split with Sanders over Sanders’s support for the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.
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Anyone care to recommend/summarize a favorite Parenti book? I feel like blackshirts and reds is pretty much the official book of hexbear, but I’d like to read some of his other work too and would love suggestions.
I really liked To Kill a Nation, which is about the NATO bombings of Yugoslavia in the 90s. I had known almost nothing about it beforehand and though it was a really good look at it
The Sword and the Dollar is a good accounting of US and US backed attrocities during the Cold war as a way of maintaining imperialism. It pays close attention to parts of South America, from what I remember.
Honestly it was a difficult read due to how graphic and detailed the eye witness reports are. But I still consider it a must read especially for US comrades.
Also Parenti usually has lectures he gave at universities on his books uploaded to YouTube by various people. So if you are unsure on a book you can listen to him give an about one hour summary of it by just searching the name on YouTube