Book Description
Power and Terror, Noam Chomsky's highly anticipated follow-up to 9-11, is drawn from a series of public talks that Chomsky gave during the spring of 2002, as well as a lengthy unpublished interview. It presents Chomsky's latest thinking on terrorism, U.S. foreign policy, and alternatives to militarism and violence as solutions to the world's problems. Chomsky challenges the United States to apply to its own actions the moral standards it demands of others, and arrives at a surprisingly optimistic conclusion rooted in his faith in the power of an informed public.

From a review at Amazon.com:
This is a quick read and one that is worth the few hours or so that it takes to read the entire book. Mr Chomsky gets his points across directly and clearly. He is able to show why we are having problems in the Middle east, why the people there do not trust us and why we are taking the action that we have taken. I would have liked a few more footnotes. He mentions a few things that he assumes the read is already aware of; however, it would have been nice to have a few more details. This is a very good book in setting the record straight. Once you have finished this book please get another one of his and go through it. Everything that he writes (or says since most of this one is from various talks that he has given in 2002) is very "matter of fact" and to the point. It really makes you think.

More by Chomsky:
• English Articles and free E-Books by Noam Chomsky
• Deutsche Artikel und Interviews von Noam Chomsky

I think I'll start a bookring on this one, with Munich and Erfurt in Germany as the first stops along the line. Interested? Write an entry in my guestbook or write a PM.

Ich werde hier wohl einen bookring machen, mit München und Erfurt als erste Stationen. Interesse? Eintragen ins Gästebuch oder PM.

Participants/Teilnehmende (in order of probable sending):
• GirlFromIpanema
• mojitopt
• Ench
• Lisa-B
• ravn
• idioteqnician
• Foucault
• Herschelian
• LeafofHumanTree
• sonnenblume
• You?
• IrasCignavojo

Released on Thursday, September 11, 2003 at fellow bookcrosser in Postal Release, Baden-Württemberg Germany.

Geht heute raus, passenderweise und unbedingt zu diesem Datum.

Was lang verjährt wird doch noch Wut?

Trotz Postamt: Auf dem Weg zu GFI, und damit wieder InTheWild...

Touchdown.
Wonder, where this one has been during the last weeks :-) (Da muß jemand von der Post hier im Forum mitlesen, und sich geschämt haben ;-) ?). But it is now safe in my hands and will be read ASAP.

I did not finish the book (not having had much time for reading in the last months). But what I read (the interview and some of the other pieces), prompted me to put Chomsky on my To-Be-Watched-For List ;-). I will look for one of his new works.
The book was sent by mail to Mojitopt on 29.12.2003. Enjoy!

Found this book in my mailbox after returning from the New Year's break. Thanks Iras for the bookring and GFI for sending it. I have read Chomsky's 9-11 and am looking forward to find out, how his opinions have changed or developed since.

Comment after reading (17-03-2004)
It took a couple of weeks until I managed to finish this book. It is a fairly thin volume, basically a longer interview and a couple of essays and Q&A sessions from his talks. However, by now I am so fed up by being reminded of U.S. policy (Bush sen., Clinton, Bush jun.), their support of dictators they later would call "deamons", their support of Israeli attacks against Palestinians, their human rights infringements, their behaviour in countries like Colombia, Honduras, Nicaragia and the rest of the world (not to speak of Afghanistan and Iraq), their disrespect for international laws and breaking of the Geneva conventions... I just can't avoid a feeling of disgust rising every time I read another page ... It will be my last Chomsky for some time, not because I don't like his sarcastic, sometimes cyncical way of putting things to the point, but rather that it doesn't get any better by repeating the facts like a mantra...

Released on Monday, March 22, 2004 at ... by mail :) in Sent to a fellow BookCrosser, Bookring Controlled Releases.

Ench asked to be skipped, so Lisa-B is next.

Received today, thanks!

I quite agree with mojitopt's comment. Also, when I read the book I realized that I had expected something like a reasonably in-depth analysis, which this book is not all. This is a case of right book, wrong time, I think.

I am mailing it to ravn in Berlin tomorrow.

Und auch dieses Buch ist heil bei mir angekommen und wird unverzueglich verschlungen.

Sorry for the delay. Chomsky has gone lost among all my stuff while I was moving, and I did not recall having him. But now he's about to travel further on.

The lecture was a real eye-opener, even for someone who is familiar with alternative media sources. It is always a pleasure to read Chomskys works.

I moved apartments a few weeks back and didn't return to pick up my mail until just the other day. I found this book waiting for me and I felt bad, thinking I'd forgotten some trade I'd set up with someone (which I've done before...). As it turns out, I'd signed up for a Chomsky bookring last year. Who knew?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I read half while at work yesterday (that's the kind of laid-back job I have...) and half on a plane today. I see Chomsky in documentaries often and read little bits written by him here and there, but had never read a whole book of his - though, to be fair, this isn't really a book, it's a collection of talks. I loved the easy-going, straight-to-the-point style. No pretension or decorating the facts, Chomsky just calls it as it is.

I learned A LOT from this book, and I consider myself to be a well-informed person. One thing I would have liked is more of the audience Q&A that followed his talks in 2002. I have a feeling that people might have voiced some opposition to his points and I would have loved to have known their ideas and also Chomsky's replies. Unfortunately, in the few instances where dissenting questions are included, Chomsky seems to twist his replies so that he doesn't actually answer the question being asked (ex: "Don't you think you oversimplify things?") and instead answers the question he would have preferred. He still makes valid points, but I'd like him to answer the question head on, as I'm sure he is capable of doing.

It is so refreshing to hear/read somebody say/write the things that Chomsky does. On that note, while on the plane today I took a break from this book and read the Globe and Mail. Heather Mallick, a columnist who always writes with a wry grin, had a column that made me laugh and which tied into the idea of having the guts to just say what you think. I've pasted the column below or you can click here to link to the column on the Globe and Mail site.

---

Mallick, Heather. "Where have all our heroes gone?" The Globe and Mail. July 24, 2004: F2

"So lowered are our expectations that the Rosa Luxemburg of our time is now Linda Ronstadt, 58, who was thoroughly booed at the Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts in Las Vegas for dedicating a second encore, the song Desperado, to Michael Moore, whom she called "a great patriot who's just trying to get the truth out."

The Aladdin says it won't have her back. When Michael Moore wrote to the theatre to defend freedom of speech and offered to sing America the Beautiful onstage with Ms. Ronstadt, casino president Bill Timmins responded with a misspelled, illiterate letter that twinned Jesus and George W. Bush and insulted his own famously fat customers by saying Las Vegas has thousands of all-you-can-eat buffets that Mr. Moore might like.

Still, it shouldn't surprise me that the woman whose version of Long Long Time used to make adults cry has been reduced to singing to gambled-out golfers and their wifettes who throw drinks and steaks at the stage and shout "We wanna hear White Rhythm and Blues! Where's J.D. Souther? Were you sleeping with him? Was it great? We wanna be young again."

We're all whores, but some of us are more enthusiastic than others. In the '80s Ms. Ronstadt made an exclusive Toronto appearance for Ford dealers. I forgave her, assuming that only Ford had the cash to assemble an orchestra for her to do her Nelson Riddle renditions of soppy songs and still have ticket prices low enough for an audience that placed music fourth after parking, a bang-up dinner and a nymphette babysitter.

She was happily performing at Sun City, that giant engine generating money for South African apartheid, when Steve van Zandt had a 1985 hit with Sun City and Nelson Mandela was still in jail. Now she thinks she's a political activist because she reproachfully dedicates Straighten Up and Fly Right to Enron?

I suppose I'm sarcastic because I was late for the party. Too young to protestVietnam and too Canadian for Greenham Common, when the U.S. tested cruise missiles in Canada, I stepped out the door of my parents' house and gave the clear blue Alberta sky a glare it won't soon forget, but such has been the extent of my militancy.

Where have all the radicals gone? Skip the next paragraph if you're easily nauseated.

Martha Stewart, talking to Barbara Walters after receiving a five-month jail sentence, said that even good people go to prison. Like Nelson Mandela, she said.

Ah, breaking rocks in the hot sun for 27 years so the dust permanently harms your eyes and the stones cut your skin while your people are torn apart by whips and the jaws of police dogs and Dick Cheney rejoices in your suffering . . . Martha Stewart can't even make a moral dishtowel in a Shenzhen sweatshop. She said later that she wasn't comparing herself to Mr. Mandela. "I am not a Nobel prize winner."

For some reason, shame's black bile didn't eat her alive right there in the TV studio, leaving a pile of wet cinders on her little confessional couchy. Ms. Ronstadt admits she has nothing to lose. She is semi-retired, Clear Channel isn't going to play her songs anyway, and she just wants Americans "to get their heads out of their mashed potatoes."

At least she's honest. I object when Diana Krall makes a CD with a cover that is identical to her simultaneous Chrysler ad, but no one else minds. I'm not surprised she married Elvis Costello, the man who once referred to the late Ray Charles as a "blind ignorant nigger." He did apologize, saying he had been drunk at the time, but couldn't he just have thrown up on himself or drowned in the swimming pool like a normal rock star? I still wince when I hear his women-hating songs.

This is the sum total of American entertainment opposition to the war. The Dixie Chicks say "darn that Bush." Bruce Springsteen plans a free concert in Central Park. You're really going all out there, aren't you, Brucie?

I don't know that music ever genuinely meant anything, but people thought it did. Now we have a Coldplay marrying a Paltrow and talentless actors becoming billionaires because their dad was Kirk Douglas. Jon Stewart makes superfine jokes about President Bush, but his audience is still small by American standards.

Where are the public figures, aside from Chomsky and Sontag and the great Steve Earle, making a genuine protest?

In this era, anyone attempting any kind of genuine artistry in the United States should be writing in their own blood. Instead they write in crayon. To paraphrase that song lyric by the original rebel Tom Waits, Bush is the man who sold Americans "a rat's asshole" and told them it was a wedding ring. I wish someone would just say it out loud."

Just received from idioteqnician - Thanks!

I've now started to read this book. I don't think it's going to take me long.

Like Lisa-B, I think I was expecting a little more from this book. So far, I've read the first section, "Interview With Noam Chomsky for the Film Power and Terror", a movie made by John Junkerman, an American living in Japan. I may have chosen the wrong book to serve as an introduction to Noam Chomsky.

I guess the justification for putting this at the beginning of the book is that the interviewer asks Chomsky about how he started out as an activist. I'm sure it's fine for someone familiar with Chomsky's themes, but for a new reader, it's pretty baffling, since it's like walking in during the middle of a conversation you're not privy to.

Essentially, starting with 9-11, Chomsky talks about how there's a "dual standard" for terrorism: when someone else commits it, it's terrorism, but when we commit it, it's just countermeasures or warfare. Several incidents with which I'm not really familiar are cited, but unfortunately the only footnote that's included in this section is a reference to the sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway, with which I was familiar.

Well, I've finished the rest of the book. Like Lisa-B mentioned earlier, I feel that for me, it's the right book at the wrong time.

I'm not familiar with Chomsky's other work, but in this book, there is a single theme, the United States' role in terrorism (which is given its, I feel, proper definition of attacks on civilians, rather than being limited to organizations attacking civilians, as opposed to countries attacking civilians). Several arenas are mentioned, such as Iraq, Iran, Colombia, Palestine, etc., but the theme is the same. Unfortunately, as the book is taken from talks and question and answer sessions, there is little in the way of background information, so unless you're familiar with his examples, the book can be confusing in parts.

I've certainly learned a lot from the book. For the first time, I've understood why the US media appears to be largely uncritical of the Government. It's not that the Government controls the media, but that the big media conglomerates are driven by the same economic goals as the Government. What benefits the Government benefits these huge corporations.

What I found frustrating about reading this was that Chomsky didn't really give any advice on what I or someone similarly motivated could do about the problems he outlines. He presents this as historical information, without giving us the tools to make a difference. I think his audience is academics. Contrast this with someone like Michael Moore, who presents things in a simple to understand manner, then gives you ideas about things the average person can do if they want to make a difference.

Above all, however, I would like to read a Chomsky book with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Reserved and waiting to be mailed to Herschelian.

On its way to Herschelian.

This book just arrived by post from Foucault, it has taken a while to get here. I will read it as fast as I can.

I found this book interesting, though a little disjointed. Chomsky seems to be taking a line that is very familiar in the European media vis a vis analysis of American foreign policy. I suspect readers of this book are already open (if thats the right word) to this analysis to a greater or lesser extent, and therefore the book is preaching to the converted. There is a three part documentary series running on BBC TV at the moment, entitled "The Power of Nightmares" and it made good companion viewing when reading this.
I am sending the book on to LeafOfHumanTree who is next in the Book Chain.

Thank you. I received the book today and will read it as quickly as I can. I'm looking forward to this.

I'm sending this to sonnemblume.

Having read this, I've asked for a copy of Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival for Christmas. The question-and-answer interview format of 'Power and Terror: Post 9/11 Talks and Interviews' makes for quick reading; now I'm looking forward to reading a meatier book by Chomsky. I first read Chomsky many years ago in university and Power and Terror has re-ignited my desire to read more of his works. This short book gives you a taste of his comprehensive knowledge of world affairs and his logical, ethical stance, which cuts through the propaganda we hear each night on the news. Don't be put off by Chomsky's reputation as an 'intellectual'; he speaks and writes clearly, without using academic jargon.

just arrived

This book was not really what I expected, but it made me curious. I never read Chomsky before, but I think I will read more.

RELEASE NOTES:

back to tübingen

Arrived well and save back at my place and is now available for another round of BookRing.
Those that participated might be interested to read the Greg Palast book "Best democracy money can buy" (jetzt verfügbar als deutscher BookRing "Shame on You! Die Wahrheit über Macht und Korruption in westlichen Demokratien")

Surprise! Found the book in my mailbox (again :-) ). Hopefully, I will be able to read more of it this time around. Thank you, Iras!

Back to Iras by personal delivery :-). Thanks for letting me have it a second time :-).

Got this one back at the Dresden800 (or as I would call it: the annual central-european International BC-MeetUp) Meeting ...yesterday.

Thanks for all who participated so far. I will spice it up with a CD accompanying it and send it on another round soon (or what counts as "soon" in my world).

RELEASE NOTES:

at VAMF

Found this book at the meetup in Frankfurt

I've known the name "Noam Chomsky" mainly for the linguistic work used in computer science. Hs political engagement is a new facette of Chomsky's life to me.

Catched at the munich meet-up.

Received yesterday from Don Pasquale, for release at the Discworld Convention in Birmingham this weekend.

It sounds interesting (though the general problem is of course, already well-known outside the US) and thin, so I'll try to read it during the journey.

Edited to add: I did (barely) finish reading it before releasing it, but didn't get to an Internet PC for the proper release before it already was caught!

Anyway, to add to the similar comments the earlier readers already made: Good book, interesting but a bit depressing. The general problem is already known to non-Americans, although the specific examples he gives are new (and a bit overwhelming sometimes). And there is a select bibliography at the end for follow-up. So a good introduction.

I picked this up at the Discworld Convention. I've read a little Chomsky before (Manufacturing Consent) and this collection of interviews and talks, while less thorough than his essays, makes much easier reading. Well worth flicking through as a brief introduction to Chomsky and his ideas, or as an immaculately worded rant to get that righteous anger bubbling.
To be followed up by something more challenging, with lengthy footnotes.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Passed onto a friend during the demo against the Labour conference - it seemed apt.

Good book from what i've read s far, the first i've found and it was a good introduction to the whole system and website