The Watergate break-in was a conspiracy, as was the Watergate cover-up, which led to Nixon’s downfall. Conspiracies are a matter of public record, and some are of real political significance. People go to jail for committing conspiratorial acts. But it does not logically follow that all conspiracies are imaginary.Ĭonspiracy is a legitimate concept in law: the collusion of two or more people pursuing illegal means to effect some illegal or immoral end. There are people who believe that the United States has been invaded by a secret United Nations army equipped with black helicopters, or that the country is secretly controlled by Jews or gays or feminists or black nationalists or communists or extraterrestrial aliens. To be sure, wacko conspiracy theories do exist. beautifully written.“Almost as an article of faith, some individuals believe that conspiracies are either kooky fantasies or unimportant aberrations. “The most enjoyable work of classical history I have ever read.” It is a wonderful read! with a very effective use of humor” “Excellent, parts of it are great literature” He adds a very useful appendix that enables one on their own to penetrate into the scholarly resources available. The words flow clear, the concepts easily grasped. He makes clear what the “gentlemen historians” with their upper class biases have so muddled. I can relate it to my life experiences and give it heft and dimensions because Parenti writes of and documents very well the crucial forces that were at work. I understand the history as I never before did. His presentation, like a fork of lightning, illumines the history of Rome. “Parenti's discussion of the assassination of Gaius Julius Caesar is radically enlightening. It is history and historical analysis of the highest order and should not be missed by anyone with an inkling of historical curiosity.” “ The Assassination of Julius Caesar is a major scholarly work and will surely be read and discussed for generations. What other readers, editors, and authors are saying about The Assassination of Julius Caesar offers a compelling new perspective on an ancient era, one that contains many intriguing parallels to our own times. Here is a story of empire and corruption, patriarchs and subordinated women, self-enriching capitalists and plundered provinces, slumlords and urban rioters, death squads and political witchhunts. In these pages we encounter money-driven elections, the struggle for economic democracy, the use of religion as an instrument of social control, the sexual abuse of slaves, and the political use of homophobic attacks. Parenti reconstructs the social and political context of Caesar’s murder, offering fascinating details about Roman society. Caesar’s assassination set in motion a protracted civil war, the demise of a five-hundred-year Republic, and the emergence of an absolutist rule that would prevail over Western Europe for centuries to come. Parenti shows that Caesar was only the last in a line of reformers, dating back across the better part of a century, who were murdered by opulent conservatives. In The Assassination of Julius Caesar, the distinguished author Michael Parenti subjects these assertions of “gentlemen historians” to a bracing critique, and presents us with a compelling story of popular resistance against entrenched power and wealth. They cast Caesar, who took up the popular cause, as a despot and demagogue, and treat his murder as the outcome of a personal feud or constitutional struggle, devoid of social content. They regard Roman commoners as a parasitic mob, a rabble interested only in bread and circuses. Most historians, both ancient and modern, have viewed the Late Republic of Rome through the eyes of its rich nobility.
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