The Chomsky Z Collection

The Chomsky Reader brings together for the first time the political thought of American's leading dissident intellectual—“arguably the most important intellectual alive” (The New York Times). At the center of practically every major debate over America's role in the world, one finds Noam Chomsky's ideas—sometimes attacked, sometimes studiously ignored, but always a powerful presence. Drawing from his published and unpublished work, The Chomsky Reader reveals the awesome range of this ever-critical mind—from global questions of war and peace to the most intricate questions of human intelligence, IQ, and creativity. It reveals the underlying radical coherency of his view of the world—from his enormously influential attacks on America's role in Vietnam to his perspective on Nicaragua and Central America today. Chomsky's challenge to accepted wisdom about Israel and the Palestinians has caused a furor in America, as have his trenchant essays on the real nature of terrorism in our age. No one has dissected more graphically the character of the Cold War consensus and the way it benefits the two superpowers, or argued more thoughtfully for a shared elitist ethos in liberalism and communism. No one has exposed more logically America's acclaimed freedoms as masking irresponsible power and unjustified privilege, or argued quite so insistently that the “free press” is part of a stultifying conformity that pervades all aspects of American intellectual life. In a lengthy interview with the editor, Chomsky discussed his thought in the context of his personal history.

The renowned linguist and political activist offers penetrating reflections on language, human nature, and foreign policy in this essay collection. From linguistics to the Middle East; foreign affairs to the role of the media; and intellectual responsibility to the situation in East Timor, Noam Chomsky offers a wide-ranging exploration of the issues and ideas that have concerned him most deeply throughout his distinguished career. These essays are drawn from a series of lectures Chomsky gave in Australia in 1995, under the auspices of the East Timor Relief Association. Examining the interplay between language, human nature and foreign policy, Powers and Prospects provides a scathing critique of government policy orthodoxy. Moving beyond criticism of the status quo, Chomsky then outlines other paths that can lead to better understanding and more constructive action.

In a single volume, the seminal writings of the world's leading philosopher, linguist, and critic, published to coincide with his eightieth birthday. For the past forty years Noam Chomsky's writings on politics and language have established him as a preeminent public intellectual and as one of the most original and wide-ranging political and social critics of our time. Among the seminal figures in linguistic theory over the past century, since the 1960s Chomsky has also secured a place as perhaps the leading dissident voice in the United States. Chomsky's many bestselling works - including Manufacturing Consent, Hegemony or Survival, Understanding Power, and Failed States - have served as essential touchstones for dissidents, activists, scholars, and concerned citizens on subjects ranging from the media to human rights to intellectual freedom. In particular, Chomsky's scathing critiques of the U.S. wars in Vietnam, Central America, and the Middle East have furnished a widely accepted intellectual inspiration for antiwar movements over nearly four decades. The Essential Chomsky assembles the core of his most important writings, including excerpts from his most influential texts over the past forty years. Here is an unprecedented, comprehensive overview of Chomsky's thought

Selected by Newsweek as one of “14 nonfiction books you’ll want to read this fall” Fifty years after it first appeared, one of Noam Chomsky’s greatest essays will be published for the first time as a timely stand-alone book, with a new preface by the author As a nineteen-year-old undergraduate in 1947, Noam Chomsky was deeply affected by articles about the responsibility of intellectuals written by Dwight Macdonald, an editor of Partisan Review and then of Politics. Twenty years later, as the Vietnam War was escalating, Chomsky turned to the question himself, noting that "intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments" and to analyze their "often hidden intentions." Originally published in the New York Review of Books, Chomsky's essay eviscerated the "hypocritical moralism of the past" (such as when Woodrow Wilson set out to teach Latin Americans "the art of good government") and exposed the shameful policies in Vietnam and the role of intellectuals in justifying it. Also included in this volume is the brilliant "The Responsibility of Intellectuals Redux," written on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, which makes the case for using privilege to challenge the state. As relevant now as it was in 1967, The Responsibility of Intellectuals reminds us that "privilege yields opportunity and opportunity confers responsibilities." All of us have choices, even in desperate times.

Noam Chomsky as political gadfly, groundbreaking scholar, and intellectual guru: keyissues in Chomsky's career and the sometimes contentious reception to his ideas.

This collection of papers opposes what has been the dominant linguistic theory in Western academies for over fifty years. Deriving initially from the structuralist ideas of Ferdinand de Saussure, the theory was proposed by Noam Chomsky as transformational generative grammar. Though it proved hugely influential and has gone through many modifications and revisions, J. Paul N. Cant argues that it was based on a number of false assumptions and much misleading epistemological confusion. Further, in elaborating the theory, Chomsky and his followers often failed to observe the rigour and disciplines of science. “The most incisive critique of Chomsky I have read in my life — Prof. Willie van Peer, Formerly Chair of Intercultural Hermeneutics, Ludwig Maximillian University, Munich, Germany.

"Wolfgang B. Sperlich explores Chomsky's formative years and his main intellectual influences, and charts his strained relationship with mainstream American academia. He also offers an informed overview of Chomsky's landmark linguistics contributions as an introduction to his work, and he explains the latest developments in Chomskyan linguistics and how they influence research in fields as varied as neuroscience, biology and evolution. Sperlich is equally attentive to Chomsky's political activism - from the pacifist-anarchist lectures and writings of the 1950s and '60s to his recent book Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, a chilling interpretation of an American foreign policy that is determined to achieve 'unilateral world domination through absolute military superiority'. Sperlich's Noam Chomsky is the perfect introduction to one of the most profound thinkers of our time."--BOOK JACKET.