Remembering Michael Parenti

Author and lecturer Michael Parenti passed away peacefully at home on January 24, 2026, at the age of 92. Born into a family of working-class Italian immigrants and raised in East Harlem, New York City, Parenti attended City College CUNY; Brown University; and Yale, where he earned a PhD in Political Science. Radicalized by the Vietnam War, Parenti became a Marxist and an activist. During protests, he was several times arrested and on two occasions badly beaten and bloodied by the police.

Despite publishing articles in the leading political science and history journals, as well as publishing numerous discipline-shaping and groundbreaking books, he was by the mid-70s blacklisted from academia. Thereafter, living by his pen alone while supporting his son and ex-wife, he became a renowned public intellectual and a leading voice on the American left.

Over the years, although he never got tenure, Parenti taught at universities including: Cornell University; Sarah Lawrence College; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; University of Vermont; University of Canterbury at Christchurch, New Zealand; Howard University; Brooklyn College CUNY; and California State University, Northridge. He wrote and published many scores of both academic and popular articles, as well almost 30 books, many of which were translated into languages including Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Spanish, Portuguese, Serbian and Turkish.

For most of the last 30 years, Parenti lived in Berkeley, California, where he wrote prolifically, lectured widely, and found a community of politically kindred spirits. He never gave up his fight for a more just and humane social order. For the final three years of his life, Parenti lived in Western Massachusetts close to his family.

Parenti is survived by his son, Christian Michael Parenti; his son’s mother, Susan Mahon Parenti; his grandson, Jack Parenti; and Jack’s mother, Marcie Smith.

All are invited to a public memorial to celebrate the life of Michael Parenti on Saturday, April 25, at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley.