Imperial Ambitions - by Noam Chomsky & David Barsamian (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In this first collection of interviews since the bestselling 9-11, our foremost intellectual activist examines crucial new questions of U.S. foreign policy.

Timely, urgent, and powerfully elucidating, this important volume of previously unpublished interviews conducted by award-winning radio journalist David Barsamian features Noam Chomsky discussing America's policies in an increasingly unstable world. With his famous insight, lucidity, and redoubtable grasp of history, Chomsky offers his views on the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the doctrine of "preemptive" strikes against so-called rogue states, and the prospects of the second Bush administration, warning of the growing threat to international peace posed by the U.S. drive for domination. In his inimitable style, Chomsky also dissects the propaganda system that fabricates a mythic past and airbrushes inconvenient facts out of history.
Barsamian, recipient of the ACLU's Upton Sinclair Award for independent journalism, has conducted more interviews and radio broadcasts with Chomsky than has any other journalist. Enriched by their unique rapport, Imperial Ambitions explores topics Chomsky has never before discussed, among them the 2004 presidential campaign and election, the future of Social Security, and the increasing threat, including devastating weather patterns, of global warming. The result is an illuminating dialogue with one of the leading thinkers of our time--and a startling picture of the turbulent times in which we live.

Review Quotes

"If, for reasons of chance, or circumstance, (or sloth), you have to pick just one book on the subject of the American Empire, I'd say pick this one. It's the Full Monty. It's Chomsky at his best . . . necessary reading." --Arundhati Roy
"How did we ever get to be an empire? The writings of Noam Chomsky--America's most useful citizen--are the best answer to that question." --The Boston Globe

"Unique insight into Chomsky's decades of penetrating analyses, drawn together . . . by a brilliant radio interviewer, David Barsamian." --Ben Bagdikian, winner of the Pulitzer Prize on Propaganda and the Public Mind: Conversations with Noam Chomsky

About the Author

Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor (emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Laureate Professor of Linguistics and Agnese Nelms Haury Chair in the Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona. His work is widely credited with having revolutionized the field of modern linguistics. Chomsky is the author of numerous best-selling political works, which have been translated into scores of languages. Recent books include What Kind of Creatures Are We?, as well as Optimism Over Despair, and Internationalism of Extinction.

David Barsamian has altered the independent media landscape, both with his weekly radio program, Alternative Radio, and his books with Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Arundhati Roy, and Edward Said.