Challenging Chomsky

Noam Chomsky is a pioneering scholar in the field of linguistics, but he is better known as a public intellectual: an iconoclastic, radical critic of US politics and foreign policy. Chomsky's Challenge examines most of the major subjects Chomsky has dealt with in his nearly half century of intellectual activism--the Vietnam War, America's broader international role (especially its interventions in the Third World), the structure of power in American politics, the role of the media and of intellectuals in forming public opinion, and American foreign policy in the post-Cold War world. Chomsky is as controversial as he is influential. Admirers see him as a courageous teller of unpleasant truths about political power and those who wield it in the United States. Critics view him as a propagandist and ideologue who sees only black and white where there are multiple shades of gray. While Chomsky's fans tend to view him uncritically, his critics often don't take him seriously. Unlike any previous work, this book takes Chomsky seriously while treating him critically. The author gives Chomsky credit for valuable contributions to our understanding of the contemporary political world, but spares no criticism of the serious deficiencies he sees in Chomsky's political analyses.

Berwick and Chomsky draw on recent developments in linguistic theory to offer an evolutionary account of language and humans' remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire it. “A loosely connected collection of four essays that will fascinate anyone interested in the extraordinary phenomenon of language.” —New York Review of Books We are born crying, but those cries signal the first stirring of language. Within a year or so, infants master the sound system of their language; a few years after that, they are engaging in conversations. This remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire any human language—“the language faculty”—raises important biological questions about language, including how it has evolved. This book by two distinguished scholars—a computer scientist and a linguist—addresses the enduring question of the evolution of language. Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky explain that until recently the evolutionary question could not be properly posed, because we did not have a clear idea of how to define “language” and therefore what it was that had evolved. But since the Minimalist Program, developed by Chomsky and others, we know the key ingredients of language and can put together an account of the evolution of human language and what distinguishes us from all other animals. Berwick and Chomsky discuss the biolinguistic perspective on language, which views language as a particular object of the biological world; the computational efficiency of language as a system of thought and understanding; the tension between Darwin's idea of gradual change and our contemporary understanding about evolutionary change and language; and evidence from nonhuman animals, in particular vocal learning in songbirds.

From World War II until the 1980s, the United States reigned supreme as both the economic and the military leader of the world. The major shifts in global politics that came about with the dismantling of the Eastern bloc have left the United States unchallenged as the preeminent military power, but American economic might has declined drastically in the face of competition, first from Germany and Japan ad more recently from newly prosperous countries elsewhere. In Deterring Democracy, the impassioned dissident intellectual Noam Chomsky points to the potentially catastrophic consequences of this new imbalance. Chomsky reveals a world in which the United States exploits its advantage ruthlessly to enforce its national interests--and in the process destroys weaker nations. The new world order (in which the New World give the orders) has arrived.

This study combines a description of the development of Chomsky's theory of linguistics with a satirical account of some of the debates to which it has given rise. It explains how Chomsky's theory fits into the wider study of language, his beliefs about language and mind, and the relation between his linguistic ideas and philosophy, mathematics and the natural sciences. The satirical part of the book describes the challenges to Chomsky's ideas in the context of a metaphorical maze.

A wide-ranging and incisive collection of interviews with Noam Chomsky, addressing the urgent questions of this tumultuous moment. In these informative interviews, conducted for Truthout by C.J. Polychroniou, Noam Chomsky addresses the rapid deterioration of democracy in the United States and rising tensions globally. He examines the crumbling social fabric and fractures of the Biden era, including the halting steps toward a Green New Deal; the illegitimate authority of the Supreme Court, in particular its decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade; and the ongoing fallout from COVID-19. Chomsky also untangles the roots of the War in Ukraine, the diplomatic tensions among the United States, China, and Russia, and considers the need for climate action on an international scale. Throughout, Chomsky “remains…a beacon of hope in the darkest of times" (Sarah Jaffe).

A compelling new set of interviews on our changing and turbulent times with Noam Chomsky, one of the world's foremost thinkers. In this new collection of conversations, conducted from 2010 to 2012, Noam Chomsky explores the most immediate and urgent concerns: the future of democracy in the Arab world, the implications of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the European financial crisis, the breakdown of American mainstream political institutions, and the rise of the Occupy movement. As always, Chomsky presents his ideas vividly and accessibly, with uncompromising principle and clarifying insight. The latest volume from a long-established, trusted partnership, Power Systems shows once again that no interlocutor engages with Chomsky more effectively than David Barsamian. These interviews will inspire a new generation of readers, as well as longtime Chomsky fans eager for his latest thinking on the many crises we now confront, both at home and abroad. They confirm that Chomsky is an unparalleled resource for anyone seeking to understand our world today.

First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

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.

“Noam Chomsky’s work has challenged and changed our understanding of the world from his pioneering work in linguistics to his unceasing critique of the world around us. Raphael Salkie’s book, Simply Chomsky, succeeds in bringing these critical issues to the attention of readers in a work at once succinct and illuminating.” —Irene Gendzier, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Political Science, Boston University Avram Noam Chomsky was born in Philadelphia in 1928 to Jewish immigrant parents who were both educators. His parents were mainstream liberals, but through relatives, Chomsky was exposed at an early age to socialism and other progressive ideas that shaped his politics. After earning his Ph.D. in theoretical linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania in 1955 and a fellowship at Harvard University, Chomsky became a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His first book, Syntactic Structures, published in 1957 and now considered a classic, not only shook up the study of linguistics, but also had a profound effect on philosophy and psychology, and laid the groundwork for the field of cognitive science. In the 1960s, Chomsky took part in protests against the Vietnam War and began writing the articles that initiated his other career as a public dissident and political thinker. Over the course of the next 60 years, Chomsky would continue to be a major voice in both areas, embodying a lifelong commitment to intellectual exploration, freedom of thought, and human rights. In Simply Chomsky, Professor Raphael Salkie provides a compact, user-friendly introduction to Noam Chomsky’s political activism and his groundbreaking work in linguistics. Unlike most Chomsky studies, Prof. Salkie not only covers the essentials of Chomsky’s thought and accomplishments, but also explores his most recent concerns—including the climate crisis, the threat of nuclear holocaust, and current geopolitical hotspots—which are often very different from the topics that preoccupied him decades ago. For students of linguistics, for those interested in U.S. foreign policy, and for anyone concerned about the enormous problems facing the world, Simply Chomsky will be exhilarating and thought-provoking reading. Noam Chomsky has spent his life challenging widely accepted assumptions and beliefs and has made an indelible mark on world affairs and human thought. Simply Chomsky offers a special opportunity to find out more about this remarkable and always engaging contrarian thinker.