Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky

Noam Chomsky is a professor of linguistics at MIT and, over his lifetime, has become increasingly outspoken in left-wing views about American foreign policy. This book is a compilation of transcripts of his question/answer discussions on college campuses and lecture halls between the years 1989 and 1999. The focus is on the politics of power in general, and the United States Government and the media in particular. His words are low-key and conversational and yet they carry a sharp sting as he reinterprets events over the past 35 years. In addition to the 401-pages of the book, there are 500 more pages of footnotes on the Internet.I found the book fascinating reading. My eyes stayed glued to the page and I found myself stopping often to think about his seemingly simple statements. I learned a lot. And some of it was hard to take because it made me look critically at my own view of the world and broke up many of my preconceived ideas. If anything, he demonstrates that there are many sides to every question. And I had never taken a careful look at his side before.Most of it was easy to follow. However, a lot had to do with economics, which I always find confusing. I therefore have no idea whether his arguments on this topic are valid or not. But when it comes to human nature, I'm an expert. I understand the greed, the desire for power and the horrendous amount of death and destruction that has always existed. I also understand the need to try to fight oppressive forces and make the world a better place to live. This is what Professor Chomsky wants to happen. He gives examples of progress we've made in the past that might have seemed impossible at another time. For example, in 1790, it didn't seem that slavery would ever end. And we've come a long way in the United States in the elimination of segregation and the advance of women's rights. Environmental issues are also beginning to be addressed. This gives Professor Chomsky's audiences hope.But most of the book turned a flashlight on the horrors in the world. And it bothers me that he blames it all on the United States. Surely, the world's ills existed long before the Declaration of Independence was even formulated. The American government, itself, is based on positive ideals. Yes, we have been responsible for many misdeeds. But where, but in America, would Professor Chomsky be able to be so outspoken in his criticism? In some places of the world, he would be met with a firing squad instead of an audience who cherish his every word.The book raised a lot of questions for me. And, after careful reflection I can only say that I partially agree with some of his conclusions. Some don't quite ring true. And others just seem wrong. The problem is that he seems to believe his conclusions first and then finds the facts to support his beliefs. As I could never have the battery of facts at my fingertips to debate him, or the personality for debate, I cannot make any statements of t

Required reading.It is pretty much a given that Chomsky's ideas are compelling, whether you agee or not. The extraordinary value-add in this book is the editing job. It is obvious and gigantic. The authors have organized Chomsky's talks into logically flowing, highly documented, and parallel-structured snippets of one to three pages each - and there are a couple of hundred of them. Most of them open with an audience question, and a quick retort by Chomsky. This is followed by a key word: Look, Actually, or See, after which Chomsky goes into huge depth and detail, never straying from the focus. Again, the editing is what makes it all compelling, useful, and evenly paced. The amount of work that went into tearing apart years of talks, conversations and lectures, and then organizing them in complementary sections, making them fit a format that allows the reader to breeze through (well relatively breeze through) the densely packed insights of Noam Chomsky deserves some sort of award.The footnotes are the most useful and detailed I have ever seen. They are a monumental standalone work in and of themselves. I only wish THEY were indexed like the book is - after all, there are 449 pages of them, compared to 401 pages in the book.While Chomsky comes off as extraordinarily insightful, there are weaknesses - holes you could really exploit if you ever had the privilege of arguing with him. His knowledge of financial markets and foreign currency exchange, hedge funds and such is not only superficial, but sometimes just plain wrong. Sometimes he generalizes immense conclusions from a few superficial and specifically chosen facts that ignore the complexity of the situation. This kind of inductive reasoning befits the ranting fundamentalists (of all stripes) he belittles, and is surprising from someone as "fair" as Noam Chomsky. He also completely misunderstands the power of celebrity and familiarity, missing and even denying his own leverage. In other words, he is human after all! Perhaps then, there is actually less here than meets the eye? I don't think so. I think this book is so well edited, it actually allows the reader to surgically inspect the workings of this fine mind, to put things in frames of reference and perspective, and even to claim the occasional victory over Noam Chomsky in the safety of one's own home and without a half hour rebuttal.If you're up for the wild ride to places in your own back yard, Undertanding Power is very highly recommended.

I just bought this book and I am immensely pleased with it. I own other Chomsky books -- Manufacturing Consent, Fateful Triangle, and the short interview-based books from Common Courage Press, among others -- and I have to say that this is far and away my favorite of the lot. The more scholarly books, like Manufacturing Consent and The Fateful Triangle, are thick with documentation but rather dry -- this doesn't bother me personally, but it's difficult to introduce them to someone else. On the other hand, the more accessible works, What Uncle Sam Really Wants, for example, come off to the layperson as the radical ravings of a lunatic, and unless the reader already has similar sympathies or suspicions, they are far from persuasive. This is exacerbated by the fact that in these Chomsky offers little in the way of proof, and this is why I shy away from recommending these volumes to Chomsky newcomers; as Chomsky himself would say, he sounds like he's coming from Mars.Understanding Power is a very welcome addition to the canon in large part because it addresses the aforementioned problems. For one, the questions he responds to aren't the softballs David Barsamian usually pitches him -- his interlocutors occasionally ask the very questions a skeptical or simply curious reader might be thinking to himself -- and his responses reflect this: they're less "crazy" and alien, and more thoughtful, informative, and generally convincing. A second reason Understanding Power deserves heaps of praise is the footnotes. ... The footnotes are incredible, absolutely incredible, and it's easy to see why they aren't included in the book. ... The notes themselves are both broad and deep: everything from the specific NSC documents to the actual popularity of Reagan's policies is referenced, and sources are often extracted from at length (this is unusual for the non-academic works). I was always curious where Chomsky got his figures on American religious fanaticism and now I finally know. Thumbs up to the editors.... Here is what I gather: Chomsky is often invited to Canada, he feels, because Canadians like to hear America get dumped on. Chomsky got tired of this so, yes, deliberately began a particular interview in a confrontational manner, detailing Pearson's complicity in US war crimes in Indochina (namely, arms sales), who was meanwhile posing as an impartial mediator. The book itself doesn't go into the details, but the footnotes refer to four or five books on the subject. The point of this story was not to present an indictment of Canada or Pearson but to show that, as the other reviewer accurately puts it, "the Canadian media is just as unwilling to hear contrary points of view about Canada as the American media is to hear contrary points of view about the US." Chomsky goes on to note that Canadian universities refuse to pay his plane fare if he criticizes Canadian policies during his lectures. ...-- Chomsky does in fact say "Canada was always denouncing the United

This is Chomsky at his personal best. He is more funny and animated in this book, because of the intimate nature of the gatherings posted. It is less academic but an amazing look at so many of Chomsky's beliefs and theories in one book. I was surprised there was so much here that seemed like new information. Chomsky is really more biting at these teach ins: You almost wish all of his books had this concept. There is also his use of four letter words, which you seldom see from him. He interacts with other people, and that seems to get interesting answers that Chomsky usually keeps to himself. Need I say it: Chomsky's first, "entertaining" book. It is highly informative and chock full of stuff, but it is also very fun to read. Too bad I finised it. Great book, hopefully more of these teach in tomes coming. Wonderful and searing.

Many people are eager for a true alternative to the usual gang of talking heads (or shouting heads), pundits, etc, for commentary and analysis of political and social life. Noam Chomsky continues to offer such an alternative. However, people often find Chomsky's several dozen books on international affairs difficult to read; books of interviews with Chomsky tend to be much more popular than his own writings. The reason is simple: in the informal setting of an interview or the (often lengthy) question and answer periods that follow his talks Chomsky retains his remarkable ability to bring many topics together into a coherent response. He does this by drawing upon the same wealth of source material cited in his books, but the answers given in the casual setting flesh out Chomsky's keen sense of humor, his dedication to social justice and make for easier and even more interesting reading.Carlos Otero realized this, about 15 years ago, and published "Language and Politics," an excellent book flawed only by the lack of an index or footnotes. Mitchell and Schoeffel, with "Understanding Power," have improved on Otero's book by providing an index and the much-requested and -needed footnotes. Everything in "Understanding Power" is well documented. So well documented that the notes are longer than the book itself! To handle this the editors have set up a web site especially for this book, where notes may be down-loaded (or read on-line) in either HTML or PDF format.This book, almost all of which is in print for the first time, is at once a very accessible introduction to Chomsky's political thought as well as an excellent addition to the library of the most serious Chomsky critic or enthusiast.