Christian Parenti is an American investigative journalist and author. His books include: Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis (2000), a survey of the rise of the prison industrial complex from the Nixon through Reagan Eras and into the present; The Soft Cage: Surveillance in America From Slavery to the War on Terror (2003), a study of surveillance and control in modern society. His most recent book, The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq (2004), is an account of the US occupation in Iraq. Parenti has also reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, Venezuela, and Bolivia.
Parenti's writing is usually published in The Nation, and he frequently appears on Doug Henwood's radio show, Behind The News, on WBAI in New York, to discuss his work. He also writes for many other publications, including the London Review of Books, Mother Jones and Condé Nast Traveler. He was a visiting fellow at CUNY's Center for Place, Culture and Politics, as well as a Soros Senior Justice Fellow. Parenti has taught at the New College of California and at St. Mary's College in Moraga, California.
Parenti is the son of noted Marxist Michael Parenti and Susan Parenti, an artist who lives in Vermont. He attended Buxton School in Williamstown, Massachusetts, the New School for Social Research in New York, and the London School of Economics, where he earned a PhD in sociology. He lives in Brooklyn.