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Hegemony or Survival
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Hegemony or Survival

America's Quest for Global Dominance (The American Empire Project)

Noam Chomsky
Metropolitan Books, 2003

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Editorial Rating

6

Qualities

  • Innovative

Recommendation

Most commentators view globalization almost exclusively from an economic perspective. However, controversial iconoclast Noam Chomsky, a well-known left-wing (some would say far left) academic, famed also as an innovator in linguistics, discusses globalization’s political impact as the modern driver of U.S. foreign policy. Political economics is a sensitive topic, but Chomsky doesn’t hold back as he argues that U.S. foreign policy has been imperialist since World War I. He contends that in the invasion of Iraq, and earlier forays elsewhere, the U.S. disregarded the U.N. as well as public opinion at home and abroad. Chomsky makes important, though contentious, points, but he would have a wider audience if he developed a more comprehensible writing style, avoided torturously long sentences, and provided more background on some events he covers, particularly America’s more esoteric political and military interventions. He is provocative, subjective and deeply negative about the U.S. (even referring to it as a “terrorist state”) and its allies. getAbstract finds this book may intrigue those who want to know about political thinking at all ends of the spectrum.

Summary

Humanity’s Lifespan

Biologists say that 100,000 years is the estimated lifespan of any species. As humanity approaches that span, it is endangering itself with environmental damage and threats of nuclear war. In fact, documents that were declassified in 2003 show that the U.S. and Russia came close to nuclear confrontation during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Only the cold rationality of a Russian submarine commander kept him from firing a nuclear-tipped torpedo at a U.S. destroyer.

Yet, in 2003, President George Bush stopped a U.N. effort to ban nuclear weapons in space and the U.S. blocked efforts to negotiate with Iraq, thus ensuring the current invasion. Bush made this decision “despite popular opposition...without historical precedent” in the U.S. and globally. The decision to invade fit the administration’s larger strategy: to establish U.S. dominance. Its 2002 National Security Strategy report said that the U.S could use force wherever it felt threatened.

Controlling Public Opinion

Politicians must balance their stated respect for democracy with their need to control public opinion in order to get their policies executed. Alexander Hamilton saw...

About the Author

Noam Chomsky is the author of numerous bestsellers from American Power and the New Mandarins in the 1960s to 9-11 in 2001. A professor of linguistics and philosophy at MIT, he is widely credited with having revolutionized modern linguistics.

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