Chronicles of Dissent: Interviews with David Barsamian, 1984-1996

by Noam Chomsky, David Barsamian

Overview

Conducted from 1984 to 1996, these interviews first appeared in the books Chronicles of Dissent, Keeping the Rabble in Line, and Class Warfare, all published by the independent publisher Common Courage Press in Monroe, Maine.

This omnibus collection includes a new introduction by David Barsamian, looking back on conversations and engagement with Chomsky’s ideas that now spans decades, as well as a classic essay by Alexander Cockburn on Chomsky that served as the introduction to one of the original volumes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781642595741
Publisher:	Haymarket Books
Publication date:	02/08/2022
Pages:	664
Product dimensions:	8.90(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.70(d)

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. 

David Barsamian has altered the independent media landscape, both with his weekly radio program, Alternative Radio, and his books with Noam Chomsky, Eqbal Ahmad, Howard Zinn, Tariq Ali, Arundhati Roy, and Edward Said. His latest book with Noam Chomsky is Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy. He lectures on world affairs, imperialism, capitalism, propaganda, the media, the economic crisis and global rebellions.

​​​David Barsamian is the winner of the Media Education Award, the ACLU's Upton Sinclair Award for independent journalism, and the Cultural Freedom Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. The Institute for Alternative Journalism named him one of its Top Ten Media Heroes. He is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center. In 2017 the South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy presented him with their Lifetime Achievement Award. He has collaborated with the world-renowned Kronos Quartet in events in New York, London, Vienna and elsewhere.

Barsamian was deported from India due to his work on Kashmir and other revolts. He is still barred from traveling to "the world's largest democracy."

Table of Contents

Foreword David Barsamian vii

Part I Chronicles of Dissent

Introduction: Excavating the Truth 1

1 Language in the Service of Propaganda 6

2 Israel: The Strategic Asset 23

3 Terrorism: The Politics of Language 41

4 The Propaganda System 51

5 Historical Engineering 61

6 Israel, the Holocaust and Anti-Semitism 72

7 State Power and the Domestic Enemy 83

8 Elite Power and the Responsibility of Intellectuals 111

9 State Economic Planning 129

10 US Intervention and the Demise of the Soviet Threat 147

11 Substitutions for the "Evil Empire" 169

12 Prelude to the Gulf War 196

13 World Orders: Old and New 208

14 The Global Protection Racket: Reflections on the Gulf War 228

15 Pascal's Wager 256

16 Pearl Harbor 276

Part II Keeping the Rabble in Line

Introduction 297

1 The World Bank, GATT and Free Trade 299

2 They Don't Even Know That They Don't Know 316

3 Race 334

4 Class 362

5 Media, Knowledge, and Objectivity 388

6 Crime and Gun Control 405

7 The Emerging Global Economic Order 422

8 Reflections on Democracy 446

9 Health Care 466

Part III Class Warfare

Introduction 491

1 Looking Ahead: Tenth Anniversary Interview 492

2 Rollback: The Return of Predatory Capitalism 503

3 History and Memory 546

4 The Federal Reserve Board 582

5 Take from the Needy and Give to the Greedy 597

6 Israel: Rewarding the Cop on the Beat 637

Index 657

Editorial Reviews

"These interviews with Chomsky, conducted between 1984 and 1991, focus almost exclusively on the noted linguist's controversial political views. This volume is thus a good introduction to his political thought for those who are intimidated by his densely argued, exhaustively footnoted essays and books. The discussions range all over world history, from Columbus to the Gulf War, but they return repeatedly to certain pet topics—Israel as U.S. client-state, the perversion of language by propaganda, the pervasiveness of American imperialist designs and the complicity of a large sector of the intelligentsia and media in those machinations.... What sets this book apart from Chomsky's other writings are the passages in which he relates his political ideas to his childhood and youth in New York and Philadelphia—a refreshing dip into autobiography by an otherwise impersonal observer." —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

Published by Common Courage Press, Box 702, Corner 139 & Jackson Road, Monroe, ME 04951. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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