Biography

Michael Parenti received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University. He has taught at a number of colleges and universities, in the United States and abroad. Some of his writings have been translated into Arabic, Azeri, Bangla, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

“... this tough, hilarious, right-on mix of scholar and street.”                                                                      KPFA-Pacifica, 1994

Michael Parenti has won awards from Project Censored, the Caucus for a New Political Science, the city of Santa Cruz, New Jersey Peace Action, the Social Science Research Council, the Society for Religion in Higher Education, and other organizations. In 2007 he was awarded a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from U.S. Representative Barbara Lee.
During his earlier teaching career he received grants or fellowships from the Louis Rabinowitz Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Brown University, Yale University, State University of New York, and the University of Illinois. For several years he was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C.
He now serves on the advisory boards of Independent Progressive Politics Network, Education Without Borders, and the Jasenovic Foundation; as well as the advisory editorial boards of New Political Science and Nature, Society and Thought. He also served for some 12 years as a judge for Project Censored.
He is the author of twenty-three books:

• The Face of Imperialism (Paradigm, 2011)
• God and His Demons (Prometheus Books, 2010)
• Democracy for the Few (Wadsworth, 9th edition, 2011)
• Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader (City Lights Books, 2007)
• Democracy for the Few (Wadsworth, 8th edition, 2007)
• The Culture Struggle (Seven Stories Press, 2006)
• Superpatriotism (City Lights Books, 2004)
• The Assassination of Julius Caesar (The New Press, 2003)
• The Terrorism Trap (City Lights Books, 2002)
• To Kill a Nation (Verso Books, 2001)
• History as Mystery (City Lights Books, 1999)
• America Besieged (City Lights Books, 1998)
• Blackshirts and Reds (City Lights Books, 1997)
• Dirty Truths (City Lights Books, 1996)
• Against Empire (City Lights Books, 1995)
• Inventing Reality (Wadsworth, second edition, 1993)
• Land of Idols (St. Martin's, 1993)
• Make-Believe Media (Wadsworth, 1992)
• The Sword and the Dollar (St. Martin's, 1989)
• Power and the Powerless (St. Martin's, 1978)
• Ethnic and Political Attitudes (Arno Press, 1975)
• Trends and Tragedies in American Foreign Policy (Little, Brown, 1971)
• The Anti-Communist Impulse (Random House, 1969)

Some 320 articles of his have appeared in scholarly journals, political periodicals and various magazines and newspapers.
He appears on radio and television talk shows to discuss current issues and ideas from his published works. Dr. Parenti’s talks and commentaries are played on radio stations and cable community access stations to enthusiastic audiences in the United States, Canada, and abroad.
He lectures on college campuses and before a wide range of community audiences, peace groups, labor organizations, scholarly conferences, and various other venues. His books are enjoyed by both lay readers and scholars, and have been used extensively in college courses. Among the many topics he treats are:

• Theocracy and Other Religious Sins
• Democracy and Economic Power
• Imperialism and U.S. Interventionism
• Empires, Past and Present
• Political Perceptions and Deceptions
• Ethnic-Class Experience
• Terrorism and Globalization
• Political Bias in the U.S. News Media
• Ideology and History
• Race, Gender, and Class
• The Overthrow of Communism
• Fascism: Past and Present