Product Description

Noam Chomsky is universally accepted as one of the pre-eminent public intellectuals of the modern era. Over the past thirty years, broadly diverse audiences have gathered to attend his sell-out lectures. Now, in "Understanding Power", Peter R. Mitchell and John Schoeffel have assembled the best of Chomsky's talks on the past, present and future of the politics of power. In a series of enlightening and wide-ranging discussions - published here for the first time - Chomsky radically reinterprets the events of the past three decades, covering topics from foreign policy during the Vietnam War to the decline of welfare under the Clinton administration. And as he elucidates the connection between America's imperialistic foreign policy and social inequalities at home, 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 US foreign and domestic policy, "Understanding Power" is definitive Chomsky.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28527 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

About the Author
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT, Boston. A member of the Academy of Science, he has published widely in both linguistics and current affairs. Peter R. Mitchell and John Schoeffel are public defenders in New York City

Customer Reviews

More excellent Chomsky - keep up the good work!
Those familiar with Chomsky's _Propaganda and the Public Mind_ will understand the basis of this book as it reiterates, in more detail, many of the points made previously plus a whole load more.

The book itself is a huge collection of transcripts from Chomsky's interviews and discussions with other community activists and general members of the public. As the title suggests, the emphasis here is on power structures and how we can create a workable alternative to the systems currently in place. Chomsky provides sound arguments for and how to achieve change, while also advising how a carefull choice of approach must be taken. This book is very broad in it's scope so provides a wide range of historical examples and methods for change, while also warning of possible risks in the process.

One of the books great selling points is it's COMPREHENSIVE references... This makes fantastic reading and means all the cases argued are, as usual, meticulously followed up and referenced.

One for any activist out there!

Chomsky's most comprehensive title.
If you've never read any of Chomsky's political work, then I'd thoroughly recommend you give him a chance. I believe he's the strongest author within his particular political caucus. If you agree with him, he's one of the best sources of information you will find; and if you don't, then he can offer you a presentation of "the other side" without the factual and logical errors that are a little bit too common in leftist writing.

So, to compare "Understanding Power" with other work by Chomsky:

1. Understanding Power is based on transcripts of discussions, ie in question-and-answer format. Whilst some of Chomsky's other books are based on interviews, the difference here is that Understanding Power is overwhelmingly carefully edited. The format generally makes the book more accessible than his other work; many complex issues are simple to understand when explained in this direct, concise way.

2. The footnotes are unbelievably detailed, though sadly not included in the paper edition. They're available in HTML and PDF format from www.understandingpower.com, and they're about 450 pages long, assembled by the editors rather than Chomsky himself. Although Chomsky is generally much more careful than other authors to substantiate everything he says with citations, Understanding Power goes much further, and most notes contain substantial quotations from Chomsky's original source, which means that in many cases it's not necessary to dig out some 50 year old book or government document from the 1960s in order to see what he is basing his opinion on. This is incredibly valuable, because Chomsky so often makes statements that fly in the face of everything you'll read in the media or have learnt in school that it's natural to want to check everything he says with primary sources.

3. In terms of the scope and bredth of the subject matter, again, Understanding Power stands apart from a lot of the rest of his work. Several of his recent books focus on overlapping subjects; for example Chomsky has written about US intervention in Latin America in several different places. Understanding Power contains a massive amount of information and explanation that I haven't seen elsewhere in his work (although I admit I haven't read everything he's written). I think it would therefore be a great choice if you're only going to buy one book by him, or if you've already read several of his books.

I'm not going to go into any detail on what, exactly, is the subject matter of the book because it's incredibly various (and therefore difficult to summarise) and another reviewer has already given a long list of examples.

I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Changed my perspective on the world
Every once in a while I find a book that alters my view of life and the world, a book that blows my mind. UNDERSTANDING POWER is that book this year. It is profoundly frightening and profoundly liberating. It is frightening because it taught me that just about everything I had been taught about my country and the world, everything I had taken for granted to be true, is in fact a lie. It is liberating because it corrects the lies and taught me the truth.

UNDERSTADING POWER is far too comprehensive for me to list all the amazing things Chomsky says that have changed my perspective on life (the chapter notes are so extensive that they are not included in the book but stored on a website [put ".com" behind the book's title]), but here is a brief summary of some of the most important points:

1. Noam Chomsky explains that there is no such thing as a free economy. The US has always had extensive state intervention in the economy. (Chomsky reveals that the US became powerful because of taxtiles, which are made of cotton [Chomsky says cotton was in that day what oil is today]. The reason cotton was so profitable is because the indigenous population had been obliterated and slaves had been brought in from Africa. "Imagine a more severe market distortion than that," Chomsky says.)

2. Before the industrial revolution, capital was land. Land is immobile and workers were mobile; workers could move from country to country more freely than they can today. Now, due to technological advances, capital (the companies) is mobile and due to tighter immigration laws the workers are immobile. What this creates is a situation where corporations can easily move their headquarters overseas, pit one national workforce against another, and drive everyone's standard of living down.

3. Another example of extensive state intervention in the economy, Chomsky says, is that the US government worked early in the 20th Century to destroy the transportation system, build highways, and create suburbia, thus ensure a viable market for oil (Chomsky notes that only because of great international violence does the price of oil remain within the price range the US wants it to). The result is the pollution we see and devastation of the inner cities.

4. Spectator sports are a great way to build up support for chauvinism and totalitarianism. Chomsky says that sports are supported by the ruling class as a way of conditioning the working and middle classes to form irrational loyalties to corporations and to glorify violence. Politics and culture, Chomsky says, are in the hands of the rich. So all the rest of us have is something like sports or sitcoms. (Chomsky says that the emphasis put on sports reminds him of what goes on in illiterate cultures where people form incredibly intricate kinship systems and creative language use. The author says that this shows that people want to use their minds but often do not have supportive outlets in which to do so.)

5. Chomsky says that if there is one thing power understands it is violence. To that end, he reveals how the most powerful country on earth (yes, that's us; the United States of America) has either directly (via many of our - usually illegal - foreign wars), or indirectly (via our political interference, such as the coup in Chile on September 11, 1972 that brought Pinochet to power) caused the deaths of millions.

6. The United States defies the international trend that as industrialization takes place, religious affiliation declines. In the United States the opposite happens. Religious affiliation in the United States has increased as industrializiation has taken place. Chomsky claims that the United States is one of the most fundamentalist countries in the world, and in this regard we have more in common with the impoverished third world nations and are at the same level as them in terms of religious fundamentalism. Chomsky makes two interesting points on this:

A) This trend toward religious affiliation in the United States most likely is a result of the hopelessness the citizens feel because, contrary to the other industralized nations, we in the United States do not have a powerful labor party. This means that the benefits of industrialization fall largely in the hands of the corporate owners, and only futher marginalize the US population. The US population therefore becomes hopeless and feels powerless. When people feel hopeless and powerless they often turn to religion for comfort.

B) Chomsky says that the level of religious affiliation and fundamentalism in the United States is frightening because in times of crisis - such as war or political unrest - religious fundamentalism can very easily convert itself into fascism.

UNDERSTANDING POWER is all in question/answer format, which makes some otherwise complicated issues seem rather approachable. I highly recommend UNDERSTANDING POWER for anyone interested in looking at the world in a different way and knowing the truth behind what has gone on in this world for the last century. Unlike most news media and politicians whose answers point in many different directions and may even contradict themselves year by year (our enemy this year was our friend last year, etc.), Chomsky is completely consistent. He reveals what has been common knowledge for millennia, and yet the elite have denied for just as long: that powerful people will do anything to hold on to power.

Andrew Parodi