Who rules the world?

Who rules the world?

Noam Chomsky

Book - 2016

"The world's leading intellectual offers a probing examination of the waning American Century, the nature of U.S. policies post-9/11, and the perils of valuing power above democracy and human rights In an incisive, thorough analysis of the current international situation, Noam Chomsky argues that the United States, through its military-first policies and its unstinting devotion to maintaining a world-spanning empire, is both risking catastrophe and wrecking the global commons. Drawing on a wide range of examples, from the expanding drone assassination program to the threat of nuclear warfare, as well as the flashpoints of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Israel/Palestine, he offers unexpected and nuanced insights into the workings of ...imperial power on our increasingly chaotic planet. In the process, Chomsky provides a brilliant anatomy of just how U.S. elites have grown ever more insulated from any democratic constraints on their power. While the broader population is lulled into apathy--diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable-- the corporations and the rich have increasingly been allowed to do as they please. Fierce, unsparing, and meticulously documented, Who Rules the World? delivers the indispensable understanding of the central conflicts and dangers of our time that we have come to expect from Chomsky"--

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Subjects
World politics > 21st century.
Power (Social sciences)
United States > Foreign relations > 21st century.
Published
New York : Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company 2016.
Language
English
Main Author
Noam Chomsky (author)
Edition
First U.S. edition
Physical Description
viii, 307 pages ; 25 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages [259]-293) and index.
ISBN
9781627793810
  • Introduction
  • 1. The Responsibility of Intellectuals, Redux
  • 2. Terrorists Wanted the World Over
  • 3. The Torture Memos and Historical Amnesia
  • 4. The Invisible Hand of Power
  • 5. American Decline: Causes and Consequences
  • 6. Is America Over?
  • 7. Magna Carta, Its Fate, and Ours
  • 8. The Week the World Stood Still
  • 9. The Oslo Accords: Their Context, Their Consequences
  • 10. The Eve of Destruction
  • 11. Israel-Palestine: The Real Options
  • 12. "Nothing for Other People": Class War in the United States
  • 13. Whose Security? How Washington Protects Itself and the Corporate Sector
  • 14. Outrage
  • 15. How Many Minutes to Midnight?
  • 16. Cease-fires in Which Violations Never Cease
  • 17. The U.S. Is a Leading Terrorist State
  • 18. Obama's Historic Move
  • 19. "Two Ways About It"
  • 20. One Day in the Life of a Reader of the New York Times
  • 21. "The Iranian Threat": Who Is the Gravest Danger to World Peace?
  • 22. The Doomsday Clock
  • 23. Masters of Mankind
  • Notes
  • Index
Review by Booklist Review

According to prominent intellectual Chomsky, America is not the beautiful but the deeply hypocritical. In his most recent book, Chomsky continues to deliver his scathing evaluation of the way American imperialism and foreign policy are entirely self-serving, even though they purport to serve democratic values. Here, as in his previous works, Chomsky is pedantically rigorous, citing academic texts and journals and revisiting seminal issues, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and America's not-so-impartial brokerage of their continued treaties. He looks to the future of climate change and the threat of nuclear war, citing American military blunders and continued omnipresence as the reasons that North Korea and Iran are crazy. Chomsky delivers his characteristically sardonic, biting turns of phrase: The fate of our grandchildren counts as nothing when compared with the imperative of higher profits tomorrow. Because Chomsky's prose is esoteric, self-reflexive, and, at times, dense, this is not for all readers. But Chomsky, fierce and unapologetic, has a strong fan base and continues to be an important voice.--Grant, Sarah Copyright 2016 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Equally depressing, thorough, and necessary, this new work from Chomsky (Because We Say So) shows why he is still among our most insightful public intellectuals. Here, he turns his attention to the U.S.'s current place on the world stage and how it got there. The author pulls no punches while dismantling the mainstream narrative about the Cuban Missile Crisis, American exceptionalism, the threat posed by Iran, and, through many lenses, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A key theme in this work is that the stories Americans tell about themselves are precisely that: stories. Received wisdom and mainstream history conveniently ignore the hard-to-swallow stories of U.S. support for dictators in the Middle East and Central and South America. Moreover, Chomsky observes, American maintenance of the status quo exacerbates climate change and perpetuates the threat of nuclear annihilation. This book is unwavering in its excoriation of U.S. policy, past and present. It supplies no easy answers to the questions it raises, which may very well be the point. Nevertheless, these questions must be posed, and Chomsky does so with contagious fervor. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

The dean of left-wing American public intellectuals surveys the current scene and despairs.Ever wonder what it must be like to read a single edition of the New York Times the way Chomsky (Emeritus, Linguistics and Philosophy/MIT; What Kind of Creatures Are We?, 2015, etc.) reads it? Perhaps the most intriguing chapter here devotes itself to just this exercise, and it usefully reveals his cast of mind. For Chomsky, the Times is a kind of house organ, valuable for many things but more useful as a guide to the conventional wisdom of those who rule: the United States, the G-7, the global trade organizations and financial institutions they control, multinational conglomerates, retail and media empires. As he considers the news of the day and the responsibility of privileged intellectuals, Chomsky positions himself not with his peers in service to the state but rather with those committed to a higher set of values, "the causes of freedom, justice, mercy, and peace." For decades, the author has written from this perspectivehardly a chapter passes without him citing a previous work of his ownand by now, both critics (infuriated) and admirers (charmed) are familiar with his analysis. Conversationally, with numerous historical references and his trademark mix of wit, sarcasm, invective, insight, and wrongheadedness, he identifies two principal threats, nuclear war and global warming, isolates for particular attention three geographic areas of widespread unrest and violenceEastern Europe, East Asia, and the Islamic worldand drubs our rulers for dismissing public opinion, ignoring the powerless, and placing their own interests and security over the people's welfare. No surprise that the Republican Party and a string of its presidents come in for a pounding, but Chomsky has almost as harsh things to say about presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Clinton, and Obama and their ministers, and liberal commentators like Paul Krugman. Chomsky continues to hope that demands for "independence, self-respect, and personal dignity" may reappear "when awakened by circumstances and militant activism," but he doesn't appear to be holding his breath. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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