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Power and the Powerless
238 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1978
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About the author
Michael Parenti
54 books1,521 followersMichael John Parenti, Ph.D. (Yale University) is an American political scientist, academic historian and cultural critic who writes on scholarly and popular subjects. He has taught at universities as well as run for political office. Parenti is well known for his Marxist writings and lectures. He is a notable intellectual of the American Left and he is most known for his criticism of capitalism and American foreign policy.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 16, 2012
Rather dated & entirely ortho-marxist but has excellent critique of the social process with a spot-on take on hippies & communes.
December 6, 2022
This is the third book I've read from Michael.
'Democracy for the Few' is the concrete analysis of USA whole society while this book is the theoretical (economic, political, sociological and cultural) reflections Parenti made at the same time.
It really shows how good Parenti's ability to abstract is: I enjoyed this book more than the others (maybe because of the academic approach).
All of this said, the book ain't perfect: Parenti's analysis sometimes lacks scientific rigor and ends up concluding things that aren't true at all (such as "power" sometimes being defined by perception, when in reality power (true power) is defined by material conditions and not by mental perception).
In other occassions, I know that he wants to expose things as clearly as possible and not describe phenomena as an intellectual to be more accesible, but sometimes one needs to be rigorous and brainy to explain the totality.
'Democracy for the Few' is the concrete analysis of USA whole society while this book is the theoretical (economic, political, sociological and cultural) reflections Parenti made at the same time.
It really shows how good Parenti's ability to abstract is: I enjoyed this book more than the others (maybe because of the academic approach).
All of this said, the book ain't perfect: Parenti's analysis sometimes lacks scientific rigor and ends up concluding things that aren't true at all (such as "power" sometimes being defined by perception, when in reality power (true power) is defined by material conditions and not by mental perception).
In other occassions, I know that he wants to expose things as clearly as possible and not describe phenomena as an intellectual to be more accesible, but sometimes one needs to be rigorous and brainy to explain the totality.
June 13, 2007
clean, clear, good reference book, excellent citations (as expected from the parenti family)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews