What book do you recommend by Parenti for a noob?
Thank you for the suggestions! 🙏
Love Blackshirts & Reds for more recent history, but also would like to throw in The Assassination of Julius Caesar if you are interested in the politics of Rome at all. It’s way more similar to Amerikan “democracy” than one might believe (not just “descended from”).
There were multiple almost-uprisings that were quashed by the ruling class, and this work goes into grueling detail regarding them. I do not view Rome the same as I did prior to reading it, or Amerika for that matter.
Blackshirts and the Reds (obvi), To Kill A Nation (recent history of the destruction of Yugoslavia, a lot of parallels to Ukraine), Inventing Realities (I’ve heard it’s like Manufacturing Consent, but better), and Against Empire. There are probably other good ones that I don’t know much about. I wasn’t much interested by The Assassination of Julius Ceasar, but if you’re into Roman history it’s probably good.
Inventing realities felt to me like 2 books in 1, with a very simple but well developed analysis of propaganda as part 1 and the last chapter with part 2 being the 200 pages of just gut wrenching examples of propaganda to support found between. I thought beforehand that it’d feel like there were many theses being developed, but it just hits hard then piles on support. Not a bad thing, but I found it interestingly written
Manufacturing consent is similar, but I’m sure Parenti is better than Chomsky.
(Not the original reply but) Depends on the interest, but I started with Blackshirts and the Reds (deconstructing the red fascist myths and northwestern lies about the Soviet Union) and it was an amazing read. They’re usually really short and straightforward to read, so any of them will do as the first one.
