Michael Parenti

LAND OF IDOLS: Political Mythmaking in America by Michael Parenti (St. Martin's Press: $22.95; 208 pp.). Which Michael Parenti would you rather listen to?

On the Function of History "The study of history is not only a discipline, it is itself a political act and part of the political struggle. . . . "The effort to define the past is part of the struggle to control society itself. . . .

On the Function of History "The study of history is not only a discipline, it is itself a political act and part of the political struggle. . . . "The effort to define the past is part of the struggle to control society itself. . . .

LAND OF IDOLS: Political Mythmaking in America by Michael Parenti (St. Martin's Press: $22.95; 208 pp.). Which Michael Parenti would you rather listen to?

The thrust and spirit of this book is acknowledged in the introduction, where the author says that although some will call him an extremist, "the extremists are already in power." From there on, his volume is a steadily unfolding indictment of the U.S. government and its policies, more or less what Karl Marx would present to a grand jury if he were a circa 1989 assistant U.S. attorney. As a result, the book is difficult to take seriously as anything resembling political science, despite the author's Ph.D.

For a book on the sinking of the battleship Maine in 1898, I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has letters, clippings, anecdotes or other information relating to the disaster. MICHAEL PARENTI 2801 Adams Mill Road, NW Washington, D.C. 20009

Davis' column skipped over an important point. There are thousands of voices speaking out at any moment about the problems facing America, but once an individual states the need for sweeping change he is likely to be denied access to the media. Intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky or Gore Vidal may get mention as personalities, but to get access to their ideas one has to know their names and look for them in a bookstore. There has been a campaign for the last several months to get a progressive counterpart to William Buckley et al on PBS, but with no results I've ever seen.

Michael Parenti's "The Sword and the Dollar: Imperialism, Revolution and the Arms Race" succinctly reveals the sordid history of Western Imperialism that, to this date, victimizes the world's peoples, particularly in the Third World. One would never know this, though, from reading Kevin Phillips' "review" (Book Review, May 21). Instead of critically examining the thesis of the book, he simply dismisses it and redbaits the author by stating that the sources cited at the end of each chapter refer only to "New York's Monthly Review Press, International Publishers, Progress Publishers of Moscow and the like."

This is in response to Kevin Phillips' review of Michael Parenti's "The Sword and the Dollar" (Book Review, May 21). "Upsetting the Balance" was the title of Phillips' review: Upsetting the balance indeed! Where was the balance in Phillips' review? Phillips criticizes Parenti's citations, but fails to note that Parenti uses as sources such dangerous radicals as American Presidents and generals, Catholic bishops, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, World Policy Journal, Winston Churchill and others.

Pat Buchanan wears it on Abbie Hoffman's old hat. Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren sell it on sweatshirts. Fine. It's a grand old flag, it's a high-flyin' flag. I guess Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, Denver Nuggets guard, learned his lesson. He sat quietly in the locker room. Everybody else stood. They found him out and he paid. "Wherever and whenever it is displayed," says The New York Public Library Desk Reference, "the first requirement for flying the flag is that it be flown with respect."

The thrust and spirit of this book is acknowledged in the introduction, where the author says that although some will call him an extremist, "the extremists are already in power." From there on, his volume is a steadily unfolding indictment of the U.S. government and its policies, more or less what Karl Marx would present to a grand jury if he were a circa 1989 assistant U.S. attorney. As a result, the book is difficult to take seriously as anything resembling political science, despite the author's Ph.D.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti has been a legendary poet and bookseller since he helped put the Beats on the cultural map in the 1950s. His San Francisco City Lights Booksellers published Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" in 1956, which wound up getting Ferlinghetti put on trial for obscenity. His 1958 poetry collection, "A Coney Island of the Mind," has sold more than a million copies. But before he was a poet, Ferlinghetti, now 93, was a painter. He took up the brush as a student in Paris in the late 1940s, has sold his work in galleries and not long ago had a 60-year retrospective of his art shown in Italy.

City Lights Bookstore occupies a narrow triangle of space in North Beach, wedged between Broadway and Jack Kerouac Alley, across Columbus Avenue from the original site of A.P. Giannini's Bank of Italy. In a very real sense, it stands at the crossroads of this city--just a few hundred feet east of Chinatown's Grant Avenue and catty-corner to the Condor Club, where in 1969 Carol Doda became the first bottomless dancer in the United States.