Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky

by Noam Chomsky, John Schoeffel (Editor), R. Mitchell (Editor)

A major new collection from "arguably the most important intellectual alive" (The New York Times). Noam Chomsky is universally accepted as one of the preeminent public intellectuals of the modern era. Over the past thirty years, broadly diverse audiences have gathered to attend his sold-out lectures. Now, in Understanding Power, Peter Mitchell and John Schoeffel have assembled the best of Chomsky's recent talks on the past, present, and future of the politics of power. In a series of enlightening and wide-ranging discussions, all published here for the first time, Chomsky radically reinterprets the events of the past three decades, covering topics from foreign policy during Vietnam to the decline of welfare under the Clinton administration. And as he elucidates the connection between America's imperialistic foreign policy and the decline of domestic social services, Chomsky also discerns the necessary steps to take toward social change. With an eye to political activism and the media's role in popular struggle, as well as U.S. foreign and domestic policy, Understanding Power offers a sweeping critique of the world around us and is definitive Chomsky. Characterized by Chomsky's accessible and informative style, this is the ideal book for those new to his work as well as for those who have been listening for years.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Philosophy, History, Economics, Sociology, Political Science

416 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2002

About the author

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. In addition to his work in linguistics, since the 1960s Chomsky has been an influential voice on the American left as a consistent critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, and corporate influence on political institutions and the media.
Born to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants (his father was William Chomsky) in Philadelphia, Chomsky developed an early interest in anarchism from alternative bookstores in New York City. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania. During his postgraduate work in the Harvard Society of Fellows, Chomsky developed the theory of transformational grammar for which he earned his doctorate in 1955. That year he began teaching at MIT, and in 1957 emerged as a significant figure in linguistics with his landmark work Syntactic Structures, which played a major role in remodeling the study of language. From 1958 to 1959 Chomsky was a National Science Foundation fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study. He created or co-created the universal grammar theory, the generative grammar theory, the Chomsky hierarchy, and the minimalist program. Chomsky also played a pivotal role in the decline of linguistic behaviorism, and was particularly critical of the work of B.F. Skinner.
An outspoken opponent of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which he saw as an act of American imperialism, in 1967 Chomsky rose to national attention for his anti-war essay "The Responsibility of Intellectuals". Becoming associated with the New Left, he was arrested multiple times for his activism and placed on President Richard M. Nixon's list of political opponents. While expanding his work in linguistics over subsequent decades, he also became involved in the linguistics wars. In collaboration with Edward S. Herman, Chomsky later articulated the propaganda model of media criticism in Manufacturing Consent, and worked to expose the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. His defense of unconditional freedom of speech, including that of Holocaust denial, generated significant controversy in the Faurisson affair of the 1980s. Chomsky's commentary on the Cambodian genocide and the Bosnian genocide also generated controversy. Since retiring from active teaching at MIT, he has continued his vocal political activism, including opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq and supporting the Occupy movement. An anti-Zionist, Chomsky considers Israel's treatment of Palestinians to be worse than South African–style apartheid, and criticizes U.S. support for Israel.
Chomsky is widely recognized as having helped to spark the cognitive revolution in the human sciences, contributing to the development of a new cognitivistic framework for the study of language and the mind. Chomsky remains a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, U.S. involvement and Israel's role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and mass media. Chomsky and his ideas are highly influential in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements. Since 2017, he has been Agnese Helms Haury Chair in the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona.

Reviews

[کافه ادبیات]

"نوآم چامسکی" به عنوان یکی از برجسته ترین روشنفکران عمومی عصر مدرن مورد قبول جهانیان است. طی سی سال گذشته ، مخاطبان بسیار متنوعی برای شرکت در سخنرانی های او جمع شده اند. اکنون در کتاب "فهم قدرت" ، "پیتر میشل" و "جان شوفل" برگزیده ای از اندیشه های "نوآم چامسکی" درباره سیاست های گذشته ، حال و آینده را گردآوری کرده اند.
"فهم قدرت" مجموعه ای گسترده از بحث ها و سمینارهای رونویسی شده و قبلا منتشر نشده (از 1989 تا 1999) با تحلیل سیاسی "نوآم چامسکی" است.

[نیما اکبرخانی]

عالی بود.
من تازه با آقای چامسکی به صورت مفصل آشنا شدم و ر واقع این اولین کتابی بود که از ایشون خوندم.
کتاب در واقع مصاحبه‌ها و جلسات پرسش و پاسخ چامسکی‌ست که بعدا پیاده سازی شده.
تقریبا از تمام مسائل بین المللی صحبت شده و دیدگاه خیلی خوبی نسبت به اندیشه و اندیشه ورزی به سبک چامسکی به خواننده ارائه می‌شود. در واقع این هم نوعی جهان بینی ست، دیدن دنیاست از چشمان یکی از مهمترین متفکرین زنده‌ی عصر ما.
تنها ایراد کتاب که در واقع ایراد بنده بود نه کتاب اینکه، کتاب قدری قدیمی ست. سال ۱۹۹۹ منتشر شده و یک مقداری جهان با جهان امروز ما متفاوت است. از طرفی هم دوشت داشتم نظر چامسکی را راجع به پس از ۱۱ سپتامبر هم بدانم که خوب مقدور نبود.
کتاب آنقدری خوب بود که همین الآن به فکر بیش‌تر خواندن از چامسکی هستم.

[منوچهر محور]

نوام چامسکی پروفسور زبان‌شناسی بیش از آن که با تحقیقات زبان‌شناسی‌اش شناخته شده باشد، به نظریات سیاسی و اجتماعی‌اش معروف است. از قرار او جلسات سخنرانی بسیاری در دانشگاه‌ها و مراکز فرهنگی برگزار می‌کند و در آنها نظرات خود را تشریح می‌کند. این کتاب از پرسش‌های شنوندگان و پاسخ‌های چامسکی دراین جلسات را جمع‌آوری کرده به طوری که دیدی کلی از نظرات او درباره همه مسائل (از انقلاب ایران بگیرید تا سقط جنین) به دست دهد. نظرات چامسکی واقعاً جالب هستند و او اخبار را در همه زمینه‌ها دنبال می‌کند و خیلی راحت می‌تواند ادعاهایش را با ارجاع دادن به اخبار دهفه ۱۹۶۰ به بعد ثابت کند. کتاب همچنین از این نظر که به هر موضوع به شکل خلاصه می‌پردازد هم جالب است. اما گاهی اگر موضوع صحبت برایتان اهمیت و جذابیت داشته باشد به ترجیح باید کتاب‌های چامسکی را درباره آن موضوع بخوانید مثلاً من خودم دلم می‌خواست ریز مطالبی که درباره ایران مطرح می‌کند را بیان می‌کرد که خب فقط اشاره‌ای می‌کند و رد می‌شود.
اما دو فصل آخر درباره داشتن تشکیلات است و به نظر چامسکی اگر می‌خواهید آمال و آرزوهایتان در زمینه‌های سیاسی و اجتماعی تحقق پیدا کند باید به صورت گروهی و تلاش کنید و تشکیلاتی با هدف مشخص داشته باشید. جالب این است که شنوندگان آمریکایی هم می‌گوید در این صورت کارشان را از دست می‌دهند و از نان خوردن می‌افتند. به هر حال این قسمت (دو فصل آخر کتاب) خیلی به درازا کشیده می‌شود و مردم واقعاً سوالات چرتی می‌پرسند. شاید هم مشکل از من است که از همه توقع دارم سوال خوب بپرسند... القصه دو سه فصل ابتدایی کتاب به دوستداران اندیشه نو پیشنهاد می‌شود

p584 Lars Schoultz at the University of North Carolina—who’s the major academic specialist on human rights in Latin America and a highly respected mainstream scholar—published a study on U.S. aid to Latin America almost fifteen years ago, in which he identified an extremely close correlation between U.S. aid and torture: as he put it, the more a country tortures its citizens and the more egregious human rights, the higher is U.S. aid.