Deterring Democracy

by Noam Chomsky

Overview

In Deterring Democracy, the impassioned dissident intellectual Noam Chomsky describes a world in which the United States exploits its advantage ruthlessly to enforce its national interests-and in the process tramples democratic movements.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798888901427
Publisher:	Haymarket Books
Publication date:	02/13/2024
Pages:	424
Sales rank:	907,014
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 6.00(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Noam Chomsky, the Ferrai P. Ward Professor of Modern Languages and Linguistics at the Masschusetts Institute of Technology, is the author of many books on both langauge and politics, including most recently Rethinking Camelot: John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War, and U.S. Political Culture; Language and Thought; and World Orders, Old and New.

Table of Contents

1. Cold War: Fact and Fancy
2. The Home Front
3. The Global System
4. Problems of Population Control
5. The Post-Cold War Era
6. Nefarious Aggression
7. The Victors
8. The Agenda of the Doves: 1988
9. The Mortal Sin of Self-Defense
10. The Decline of the Democratic Ideal
11. Democracy in the Industrial Societies
12. Force and Opinion

Editorial Reviews

Chomsky regards the ``new world order'' proclaimed by Bush as a sham. What this phrase means, argues the noted MIT scholar, is that the U.S. will persist in its role as global enforcer of its own foreign policies. This meticulously researched, disturbing report offers a revelatory portrait of the U.S. empire in the 1980s and '90s, an ugly side of America largely kept hidden from the public by a complacent media. Chomsky criticizes the cynical U.S. invasion of Panama that ousted Bush's and Reagan's former friend and client, General Manuel Noriega, noting also that Washington supplied military assistance to Iraq before Saddam Hussein shifted status overnight from ``favored friend to new Hitler.'' In the Philippines, Africa and South America, Chomsky finds the same story: U.S. meddling to ``defend our interests'' brings increased poverty and political repression. (June)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This collection of essays emphasizes the destructive impact of American foreign policy in Central America. Supporting chapters interpret the origins of American global intervention, the creation of domestic consensus, and the effects of the ``war on drugs.'' Much effort is devoted to exposing the ``framework of illusion'' that obscures the real objectives of violent repression in the Third World, ``punishing the underclass'' at home and protecting the conditions for ``business rule'' generally. Some readers will find Chomsky's style exaggerated and tendentious. Few scholars believe a 1952 Soviet proposal for a neutral unified Germany were remotely as straightforward as Chomsky assumes. Nevertheless, the author's sheer intellectual power and his command of sources amounts to a troubling indictment of Washington's official lies and sanctioned brutality, a situation unchallenged by the mainstream press. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries.-- Zachary T. Irwin, Pennsylvania State Univ.-Erie

Library Journal

A volatile, serious contribution to the debate over American's role as the globe's sole remaining superpower.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Chomsky is the Left's answer to William F. Buckley. Deterring Democracy can sparkle with inspiration.” —Los Angeles Times

“[Offers] a deepened understanding of the dynamics of global politics before, during, and after the Cold War . . . A compendious and thought-provoking work.” —The New Statesman

“Noam Chomasy . . . is a major scholary resource. Not to have read [him] . . . is to court genuine ignorance.” —The Nation

From the Publisher