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.
Review
"Deserves to become an instant classic." -- Bertell Ollman, author of Dialectical Investigation
"Michael Parenti examines certainties of the past from CE 300 to just yesterday, probing how we know what we think we know. Often he shows that we don't think at all" -- James W. Loewen, author of LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME
"Michael Parenti unveils the history of falsified history, from the early Christian church to the present: a fascinating, darkly revelatory tale." -- Daniel Ellsberg, author of The Pentagon Papers
"With HISTORY AS MYSTERY, Michael Parenti, always provocative and eloquent, gives us a lively as well as valuable critique of orthodoxy posing as 'history' " -- Howard Zinn, author of A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
"With History as Mystery, Michael Parenti, always provocative and eloquent, gives us a lively as well as valuable critique of orthodoxy posing as history. " -- Howard Zinn, author of A People s History of the United States
well-considered manifesto for a history that serves as a weapon in the age-old war for our intellectual emancipation Solid if surely controversial stuff. -- Kirkus Reviews
From the Publisher
Pursuing themes ranging from antiquity to modern times, from the Inquisition and Joan of Arc to the anti-labor bias of present-day history textbooks, History as Mystery demonstrates how past and present can inform each other and how history can be a truly exciting and engaging subject.
About the Author
Michael Parenti, PhD Yale, is an internationally known author and lecturer. He is one of the nation's leadiing progressive political analysts. He is the author of over 250 published articles and seventeen books. His writings are published in popular periodicals, scholarly journals, and his op-ed pieces have been in leading newspapers such as the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. His informative and entertaining books and talks have reached a wide range of audiences in North America and abroad.
