Michael John Parenti (born September 30, 1933) is an American political scientist, academic historian and cultural critic who writes on scholarly and popular subjects. He has taught at universities as well as run for political office.^[1] Parenti is well known for hisMarxist writings and lectures,^[2][3] and is an intellectual of theAmerican Left.^[4]

Michael Parenti
Parenti in Berkeley, California in 2004
Born	(1933-09-30)September 30, 1933 (age 91) New York City, U.S.
Nationality	American
Education	City College of New York (BA) Brown University (MA) Yale University (PhD)
Occupations	Political scientist author historian activist
Notable work	Democracy for the Few Inventing Reality Dirty Truths Blackshirts and Reds To Kill a Nation Superpatriotism
Spouse	Susan Parenti
Children	Christian Parenti
Awards	Career Achievement Award Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition Lifetime Achievement Award – American Book Awards
School	Marxism
Institutions	Previous institutions: University of Vermont Sarah Lawrence College Stony Brook University University at Albany, SUNY University of Canterbury
Thesis	Ethnic and Political Attitudes: A Depth Study of Italian Americans (1962)
Doctoral advisor	Robert E. Lane
Main interests	Socialism ·Imperialism ·Political economy ·Media ·Ideology

Michael Parenti was raised by anItalian-American working-class family in theEast Harlem neighborhood of New York City.^[5] After graduating from high school, Parenti worked for several years. Upon returning to school, he received a BA from theCity College of New York, an MA fromBrown University and a Ph.D. inpolitical science fromYale University.^[6] In recent decades, he has made his home in Berkeley, California. He is the father ofChristian Parenti, an academic, author and journalist.^[7]

Following completion of his doctorate, Parenti taught political and social science at various institutions of higher learning, including theUniversity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UI). In May 1970 while he was an associate professor at UI, he participated in a rally protesting the recentKent State shootings and ongoingVietnam War. At the rally he was severely clubbed by state troopers and then held in a jail cell for two days.^[8]He was charged with aggravated battery (of a state trooper), disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest. After being released on bond, he started a new teaching job at theUniversity of Vermont (UVM) in September. The next month he returned to Illinois to stand trial before a judge. Despite multiple witnesses exonerating Parenti, the judge found him guilty on all three counts. Here's how he describes what happened next:

In June 1971 I returned to Illinois for sentencing. Because I was already employed outside the state and because a host of academic lights from around the country had sent in appeals on my behalf, I was saved from having to do time. Instead, I was given two years probation, a fine, and ordered to pay court costs.^[8]

This incident effectively ended Parenti's career as a professor. In December 1971, after his UVM department voted unanimously to renew his teaching contract, the UVM board of trustees and conservative state legislators intervened and voted tonot renew, citing Parenti's "unprofessional conduct."^[9] The battle over his continued presence on the UVM faculty lasted into early 1972, but ultimately he lost his position there.^[10]

In subsequent years, he was unable to obtain another non-temporary teaching job. He learned from sympathetic associates at the colleges he applied to that he was being rejected for his leftist views and political activism. He chronicles this period of his life in the essay, "Struggles in Academe: A Personal Account", published inDirty Truths. He discusses the broader question of political orthodoxy in U.S. higher education in "The Empire in Academia" chapter of his 1995 book,Against Empire.^[11]Because he couldn't earn a steady livelihood as a professor, Parenti began to devote himself full-time to writing, public speaking, and politics.

In1974, he ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in Vermont as the candidate of the democratic socialistLiberty Union Party; he finished in third place with 7.1% of the vote.^[12][13] During his years in Vermont, Parenti became good friends withBernie Sanders. However, the two men later split over Sanders' support for theNATO bombing of Yugoslavia.^[14][15]

In the 1980s, Parenti was a visiting fellow at theInstitute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C.^[16] In 2003, theCaucus for a New Political Science gave him a Career Achievement Award.^[6] In 2007, he received a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from U.S. RepresentativeBarbara Lee.^[6]

He served for 12 years as a judge forProject Censored.^[17] He also is on the advisory boards of Independent Progressive Politics Network andEducation Without Borders as well as the advisory editorial boards ofNew Political Science andNature, Society and Thought.^[18][19]

In his bookTo Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia,^[20] Parenti denounced what he considered the demonization, by the U.S. and its allies, ofSlobodan Milošević and theSerbian Socialist Party.^[21] In 2003, Parenti became Chairman of the U.S. National Section of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milošević (ICDSM).^[22] The committee was formed to urge an end to thewar crimes trial of Milošević that commenced in 2002 at theInternational Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) inThe Hague.^[23]

The first notable book in Parenti's writing career wasDemocracy for the Few. Originally published in 1974, it has since gone through nine editions and been used as a textbook in college political science courses.Democracy for the Few contains a critical analysis of the workings of American government with particular focus on the relationship between economic power and political power.^[24]

As a rule, Parenti's books were not reviewed in mainstream publications. The one exception wasInventing Reality: The Politics of the Mass Media (1986)^[25] which was reviewed by multiple scholarly journals^[26][27][28] and byMichael Pollan inThe New York Times. Pollan wrote: "By documenting patterns of conservative bias in a dozen major news stories in the printed and broadcast press,Inventing Reality provides a valuable rebuttal to the drumbeat of criticism of the news media from the right. Unfortunately, Mr. Parenti is so simplistic and doctrinaire in accounting for this bias that he makes his book easy to dismiss." The reviewer went on to note how the author "paints the press in such broad, Marxist strokes that he ignores many details. He cannot, for example, adequately account for episodes of courage and independence, as during Vietnam and Watergate."^[29]In a response to the review published as a Letter to the Editor, Parenti challenged Pollan's negative assessment.^[30]

Parenti continued his exploration of mass media inMake-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment (1992). The book dissects numerous popular movies and TV programs which, in Parenti's view, "have propagated images and themes that support militarism, imperialism, racism, sexism, authoritarianism, and other undemocratic values."^[31] He describes what he believes is a pattern of unflattering portrayals of working-class people and trade unions, and he disputes the notion that the major studios are "giving audiences what they want."^[32] In his Foreword toMatthew Alford's 2010 bookReel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy, Parenti reiterated several of the points fromMake-Believe Media. Other leftist writers have been influenced by his media critiques.^[33][34]

Along with his interest in mass media's role in society, Parenti has regularly published articles and books on cultural matters, e.g., "Reflections on the Politics of Culture", in which he echoesAntonio Gramsci that culture "is largely reflective of existing hegemonic arrangements within the social order, strongly favoring some interests over others."^[35] He further develops this idea in his booksLand of Idols,Superpatriotism,The Culture Struggle, andGod and His Demons.^[36][37]

Dirty Truths: Reflections on Politics, Media, Ideology, Conspiracy, Ethnic Life and Class Power (1996) contains Parenti's most wide-ranging collection of writings. Among its essays are "Fascism in a Pinstriped Suit" on the possibility of American fascism arriving subtly and gradually rather than intruding in a nightmarish "Big Brother" fashion; "Now for the Weather" on how even TV weather reports can be politicized; and "False Consciousness" on why the lower classes sometimes adopt the opinions and attitudes of the upper classes.^[38] In two essays on theJFK assassination, he breaks ranks with fellow leftists such asNoam Chomsky by giving credence to skeptics of the official government narrative.^[39] He also explores what he calls "Conspiracy Phobia on the Left".^[40]Dirty Truths concludes with autobiographical sketches and poems.

Parenti's provocative 1997 bookBlackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism begins by examining the ideological underpinnings ofEuropean fascism in the 1920s and '30s as well as its incarnations asneofascism. He then takes the controversial position of defending the Soviet Union and other communist countries from reflexive condemnation, arguing that they featured a number of advantages over capitalist countries, e.g., by ensuring less economic inequality. He summarizes his approach in the Preface toBlackshirts and Reds:

This book invites those immersed in the prevailing orthodoxy of “democratic capitalism” to entertain iconoclastic views, to question the shibboleths of free-market mythology and the persistence of both right and left anti-communism, and to consider anew, with a receptive but not uncritical mind, the historic efforts of the much maligned Reds and other revolutionaries.^[41]

He later argues that the Soviet Union's "well-publicized deficiencies and injustices" were exacerbated by theRussian Civil War, theNazi-led multinational invasion, and by non-military modes of capitalist intervention against theEastern Bloc. Moreover, he claims that "pure socialists" and "left anticommunists" had failed to specify a viable alternative to the "siege socialism" implemented in the Soviet model.^[42] By offering a rare defense of 20th century socialism,Blackshirts and Reds has elicited strong reactions from anarchist and leftist publications.^[43][44]

Apart from video recordings of his public speaking engagements,^[45][46] Parenti has also appeared in the 1992 documentaryThe Panama Deception, and in the 2004Liberty Bound and 2013Fall and Winter documentaries as an author and social commentator.^[47][48]

In July 2003, Parenti was invited on theC-SPANBooknotes program to discuss his latest work,The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome.^[49][50] He appeared in an episode of the Showtime seriesPenn & Teller: Bullshit!, speaking briefly about theDalai Lama (Episode 305 – Holier Than Thou).^[51]

Because of his research for the bookTo Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia (2000) and his travel in the war-torn region shortly after the NATO bombing⁠, Parenti was interviewed inBoris Malagurski's documentary filmThe Weight of Chains (2010) and its sequelThe Weight of Chains 2 (2014) about the former Yugoslavia.^[52][53]

New York City-basedpunk rock bandChoking Victim use a number of samples from Michael Parenti's lectures in their albumNo Gods, No Managers.^[54]

• The Anti-Communist Impulse (1969)LCCN 72-85615
• Trends and Tragedies in American Foreign Policy (1971)LCCN 74-161844
• Democracy for the Few (1st edition 1974, 9th edition 2010)ISBN 978-0495911265
• Ethnic and Political Attitudes: A Depth Study of Italian Americans (1975)ISBN 978-0405064135
• Power and the Powerless (1978)ISBN 978-0312633738
• Inventing Reality: The Politics of the Mass Media (1st edition, 1986)ISBN 978-0312434731
• The Sword and the Dollar: Imperialism Revolution and the Arms Race (1989)ISBN 9780312011673
• Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media (2nd edition, 1992)ISBN 978-0312020132
• Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment (1992)ISBN 978-0312058944
• Land of Idols: Political Mythology in America (1993)ISBN 978-0312098414
• Against Empire (1995)ISBN 978-0872862982
• Dirty Truths (1996)ISBN 978-0872863170
• Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism (1997)ISBN 978-0872863293
• America Besieged (1998)ISBN 978-0872863385
• History as Mystery (1999)ISBN 978-0872863576
• To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia (2000)ISBN 978-1859843666
• The Terrorism Trap (2002)ISBN 978-0872864054
• The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome (2003)ISBN 978-1565849426
• Superpatriotism (2004)ISBN 978-0872864337
• The Culture Struggle (2006)ISBN 978-1471610721
• Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader (2007)ISBN 978-0872864825
• God and His Demons (2010)ISBN 978-1616141776
• The Face of Imperialism: Responsibility-Taking in the Political World (2011)ISBN 978-1594519185
• Waiting for Yesterday: Pages from a Street Kid's Life (2013)ISBN 978-1599540580
• Profit Pathology and Other Indecencies (2015)ISBN 978-1612056616
• Quotations From Michael Parenti (2024)

• Slavoj Žižek
• Richard D. Wolff
• Noam Chomsky
• False consciousness
• Totalitarianism
• Anti anti-communism
• U.S. presidential assassination attempts

• Michael Parenti Political Archive maintained by Michael Parenti as viewed on August 26, 2021,Internet Archive.
• Appearances onC-SPAN
• "Michael Parenti, The Darker Myths of Empire: Heart of Darkness Series". College of DuPage. May 11, 2012.