Product Description

Essays on how history's victors distort and suppress the documentary record in order to perpetuate their power and privilege, and how historians are influenced by the professional and class environment in which they work.

"Michael Parenti, always provocative and eloquent, gives us a lively as well as valuable critique of orthodoxy posing as history.'"-Howard Zinn

"Solid if surely controversial stuff."-Kirkus

Table of Contents

Prologue: Against the Mainstream
History as Miseducation
Mainstream Orthodoxy
The Hunt for Real History
Textbooks: America the Beautiful
For Business, Against Labor
The School as a Tool
Priests and Pagans, Saints and Slaves
Triumph of the One True Faith
Silencing the Pagans
Accepting the Powers that Be
Affluent Believers
Saints For Slavery
Bishops and Barbarians, Jezebels and Jews
The Myth of the Devout Peasant
The Curse of Eve
The Burning of Books
Preparing the Holocaust
History in the Faking
Suppression at the Point of Origin
Cold War in the Archives
Classified History, USA
Listening to the Muted Masses
In Ranke's Footsteps
His Majesty's Servant
An ``Aristocratic Profession''
Purging the Reds
Publishing and ``Privishing''
Marketing the Right Stuff
The Strange Death of President Zachary
Taylor, a Study in the Manufacture of
Mainstream History
Examining the Examination
Confrontation with the Slavocracy
A lethal Dose of Cherries and Milk?
Honorable Men and Official History
Against Psychopolitics
Depoliticizing the Political
Dubious Clinical Data
Lenin as Oedipus
The Compulsive Hoover
The Political Hoover
When the Political Becomes Personal
Afterword

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #151130 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Parenti (Democracy for the Few, etc.) argues that history is written by the victors, and he doesn't like it one bit. That's mostly because, as a progressive, his sympathies lie largely with history's losers. Historians, Parenti insists, have promoted gross miseducation across the board, abandoning "what really happened" in favor of a "pro-business, anti-labor" view of history. In his effort to "set things right," he turns, first, to the writings of historical textbooks, blaming "the powers that be"Ahistorians, publicists, publishers, Publishers Weekly, the culture at largeAfor sustaining a "mainstream orthodoxy." Parenti then turns to Christianity's suppression of paganism, seen microscopically in Constantine's silencing of Porphyry, to conclude that, as with all hegemonies, Christian teaching and preaching is really just an "ideological justification for the worldly interests of a ruthless slaveholding class." The problem is that Parenti is a much better complainer than he is an explainer. He's at his best when he localizes his argument in a chapter that takes on the "strange death" of President Zachary Taylor. Only there is the mysterious process by which speculation transforms into official record given ample analysis. Parenti wants a people's history, not just another account of the "gentrification of history." Yet the actual story here is slanted, jumbledAtailored to fit Parenti's all-too-familiar contentions, illustrated at times with bullet points. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Parenti, a self-styled "progressive" thinker, seems to be telling us that history is written by the winners. How original! This one-sided emotional screed repeatedly sets up straw men and then knocks them down. For example, Parenti asserts that the Catholic Church often propped up the oppressive status quo during the Middle Ages. Does any serious student of history need to be reminded of that generally accepted assertion? In his dogmatic insistence on finding a proslavery conspiracy behind the death of Zachary Taylor, Parenti crosses over from paranoia to absurdity. Yet, this is a book worth reading. For objective scholars, it provides a window to the workings of a mind hog-tied by ideology. The general reader may find that some of the less extreme speculations provide interesting food for thought. In any case, this book serves as a useful reminder that the paranoid style in politics is alive and well at both ends of the political spectrum. Jay Freeman

From Kirkus Reviews
paper 0-87286-357-3 A somewhat scattered but well-considered manifesto for a history that serves as a weapon in the age-old war for our intellectual emancipation. A quarter of college seniors cannot come within 50 years of pinpointing Columbuss arrival in America; 40 percent cannot give the dates of the Civil War; most cannot distinguish WWI from WWII, except to guess that one preceded the other. Small wonder, says left-wing historian Parenti (Dirty Truths, 1996, etc.), for most written history is an ideologically safe commodity that serves the interests of the ruling classand that in any event is generally pretty uninteresting fare. At points in this collection of essays, Parenti examines the nature of American history textbooks, which, he believes, ignore or undervalue the contributions of ethnic minorities, women, and labor; considers the influence of Christianity on European culture, a tradition, he argues, that is replete with misogyny, anti-Semitism, and book-burning; and generally offers assessments of the nations past that would give Lynne Cheney and William Bennett fits. Opponents of left-wing points of view will immediately dismiss Parentis arguments as more liberal breast-beating; proponents of those points of view will likely admire this book, which suffers only from a tendency to repeat attention-getting slogans on matters of racism, sexism, and classism. Historically minded readers on the left and right alike will find Parentis account of the 1991 exhumation of President Zachary Taylorwho, some scholars have suspected, was assassinated by poisoningto be of much interest. Parenti takes issue with the conclusions of that long-after-the-fact inquest, writing that the chief medical examiners investigation pretended to a precision and thoroughness it never attained, while the media eagerly cloaked the inquest with an undeserved conclusiveness. Solid if surely controversial stuff. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Invaluable Even if You Don't Always Agree
Parenti's book is invaluable not because he reiterates history that most seasoned readers of history haven't unearthed themselves, but because he succintly summarizes how history has been manipulated and distorted to forcefit capitalist exploitative practices throughout the centuries. The truthiness of this assertion is best exemplified by the Western Church's oppressive landholding monopolies in the post-Roman world, followed closely by royal feudal, colonial imperialist and finally sham-democractic corporatism. Parenti's book is a must read for anyone tired of the trite, homogenized, mythologized and agendized histories of this country, which validates the apparent good by neutralizing the unpleasant bad.
Any serious student who doesn't swallow the goverment lies about the Kennedy assassination will appreciate his total debunking of Posner's "Case Closed" and even his analysis of the Taylor death refutes the trumpeted non-assassination claims of the many who didn't read the coroner's report, though I did find his speculations a bit tendentious. Still, the central thesis of his book is that the man in the street hears or reads what the power structure wants him to and not the truth that may tarnish cherished myths.

Objectivity?
Parenti examined a number of accepted historical "truths" and biases to be found in current historical works. He examined the reasons for Christianity's rapid spread, the history of anti-Semitism and the clashes between labor and capital in terms of more recent factual evidence versus what is commonly explained in textbooks and the mass media. He then followed the controversial case of the death of President Taylor whom Parenti claimed was against the spread of slavery into the terrorities. The book shines when it exposes the way conjecture and flimsy evidence becomes concrete facts ready to deliver to bored students, thus fulfilling state mandated (and politically influenced) curricula.

Students and thinkers looking for more than interesting historical tidbits to spout at parties will appreciate this book about the creation of history. Those who control the past control the future, said Orwell. Parenti opened my eyes about those who control the past.

He was particularly critical of Daniel Boorstin, a well respected historian of the twentieth century. Parenti seems to be asking whether the mainstream will allow alternative histories to reach wide audiences.

Parenti's book helps evaluate the current state of the "Historical Industry" (my term). His book is a reminder to remain wary of those issuing the official history. History is a human process, his book cries, not a mystery divined by Ivory Tower mystics spread by edicts written in stone!

We must be aware of those writing and distributing history and ensure their methods and sources are verifiable. Parenti ends the book with a call for more economic analysis of the class based struggles throughout history. The book promotes genuine thought and is highly recommended.

Deserves to be a classic
This is an absolutely sensational book that deserves to be read by a larger audience than it will probably get. Parenti touches on traditionally taboo subjects and sheds a whole lotta light on them. His section on the religious inquisition is outstanding along with his analysis of how powerful mainstream intellectuals have white-washed the death of Zachary Taylor. If you have time to read only one history book all year, make this the one.