Blackshirts and Reds, Michael Parenti
Blackshirts and Reds, Michael Parenti
4 Rating(s)
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Blackshirts and Reds
Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism

Author: Michael Parenti

Narrator: Timothy Andrés Pabon

Unabridged: 5 hr 29 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 02/01/2022


Synopsis

A bold and entertaining exploration of the epic struggles of yesterday and today.

Blackshirts & Reds explores some of the big issues of our time: fascism, capitalism, communism, revolution, democracy, and ecology. These terms are often bandied about, but seldom explored in the original and exciting way that has become Michael Parenti's trademark.

Parenti shows how "rational fascism" renders service to capitalism, how corporate power undermines democracy, and how revolutions are a mass empowerment against the forces of exploitative privilege. He also maps out the external and internal forces that destroyed communism, and the disastrous impact of the "free-market" victory on eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. He affirms the relevance of taboo ideologies like Marxism, demonstrating the importance of class analysis in understanding political realities and dealing with the ongoing collision between ecology and global corporatism.

Written with lucid and compelling style, this book goes beyond truncated modes of thought, inviting us to entertain iconoclastic views, and to ask why things are as they are.

About Michael Parenti

Michael Parenti is the acclaimed author of over 250 published articles and more than twenty books, including, Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader, The Assassination of Julius Caesar, and The Culture Struggle. The New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post, the New York Review of Books, Harper's, the Nation, and Antioch Review, are among the countless publications that have praised Parenti's work.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Sunny on March 02, 2022

like actually fucking fire, just bar after bar after bar, debunked nearly every anti communist myth in simple, plain language. needs to be required reading for everyone tbh......more

Goodreads review by tara on August 15, 2014

Best chapters: 6, 7, 8, 9. 6 and 7 show really well just how disastrous the end of socialism was and 8 and 9 are a pretty good introduction to/defence of Marxism as a way of understanding the world (although from a certain perspective that's very Parenti - kind of reductive, proto-99% stuff, althoug......more

Goodreads review by Chris on August 16, 2013

A great offering by Parenti. Written with argumentative clarity and devoid of theoretical jargon, this book responds to both the anti-communist left and right. I recommend this book as a great foundation for anybody interested in the debate regarding communism's historical merits in opposition to ca......more

Goodreads review by Abhilash on June 28, 2020

Michael Parenti is a voice of sanity in these dark times when there exists a not-too-small section of self-important, self-indulgent intellectuals who pretend to be on the Left and are too quick to be swayed by capitalist realism and unhelpful pessimism, downplaying the relevance of Marxism, going e......more

Goodreads review by Kevin on May 06, 2023

As an anarchist, I certainly have issues with Marxism-Leninism as an ideology. But it's worthwhile to read Parenti and consider his arguments. And to be frank, it's refreshing to engage with the thought of a grownup M-L like Parenti, Hobsbawm, etc., after constantly encountering the kind of Stalin-a......more