"I know Pete Carmichael. I worked under him briefly when he was first appointed to an associate professorship at Western Carolina University in the late 1990s. I was a first year graduate student. He is an admitted Marxist historian...that means that his entire understanding of history is through a Marxist interpretation. Of course, he states that he personally isn't a Marxist--I asked him how a person can interpret the entirety of history from a Marxist perspective, how their entire understanding of everything is based on the Marxist dialectic and yet you are not a subscriber and supporter of Marx? He could never answer the question. I'll tell you his problem, he is firstly a Marxist and resents competing interpretations of history.
"Secondly, he is threatened that so many of these reenactors know more about history than he and his little clique of academic buddies. God forbid anyone question the ivory tower crowd and their school of exclusivity. I think that a lot of people would be shocked if they could spend a little time in the halls of most any university graduate school--particularly history departments. They are little hives of leftist Marxist activism. I consider them dangerous having survived one myself."
Mater Head
Having studied under Carmichael, I can tell you that no one wants their kids studying under him. He isn't very bright. Among many things, I was shocked at how little he knew about American history in general and military history period. He was writing critical articles on tactical and strategic actions in the Civil War that were being published and really didn't understand either tactics or strategy beyond a truly novice level. ...
LOL
Assuming the poster's telling the truth about knowing Carmichael (always iffy on the Internet) it sounds like some wires got crossed somewhere or someone has an ax to grind.
Carmichael may be a typical professor -- leans to the left, arrogant, snobbish, not as smart as he thinks he is -- but Marxist is probably going too far. It doesn't come out in the Amazon or H-Net reviews of his two books.