If this person is reviewing Blackshirts and Reds as a work of academic history, then I actually don't think it's that unreasonable. However, Blackshirts and Reds isn't a work of academic history. It's for a popular audience and is meant to make people reconsider the propaganda "common knowledge" they've absorbed.
Ok, but calling Parenti an "unrepentant defender of Stalin's Soviet Union" is still bullshit.
If this person is reviewing Blackshirts and Reds as a work of academic history, then I actually don't think it's that unreasonable. However, Blackshirts and Reds isn't a work of academic history. It's for a popular audience and is meant to make people reconsider the propaganda "common knowledge" they've absorbed.