Hegemony or Survival : America's Quest for Global Dominance

Don't get me wrong, I am a BIG fan of Chomsky. I think he is one of the most important intellectuals in the world.

But I don't have a PhD and sometimes find his work really quite hard going. Trying to pick up what the argument that he is trying to put across is sometimes difficult amonst the meticulously referenced blizard of examples.

As a lay-person I struggled to keep going through this.

The points it makes are good points but I'm sure he could have made it simpler for the public at large (myself included) to read.

Truly the majority of intellectuals are not the people who need convincing of his arguments, or being made aware of the reality of America's imperialist endeavours.

The public at large (as his book itself makes out as being the only real counter weight (superpower) to the other superpower (the US)) really need to be made aware of the arguments in this book.

The verdict is interesting, but tough to read

As a linguist, Mr. Chomsky has an amazing way with words which makes this book well worth a read. He describes events very well, and has an extraordinary way of explaining the hypocrisies of political propaganda and the use of words in the American political machinery.
The book thus gives a different insight into the American "empire-building" agenda than what is common, and knowing Mr. Chomsky's previous work, it is bound to be controversial, and even when you largely disagree with him, it is well-worth a read.
While it is well argued, my overall problem with Mr. Chomsky's theories on American empire building and hegemony, is his almost conspirational assumptions about the US attempts at seizing and keeping its empire. By doing this, I feel he gives a lot of credit to many US leaders who have in many cases been, at best, incompetent, and undermining of the programme. While propaganda is surely used and misused to form opinion, in a society like the US, this is not a one-sided process: there is debate, things change quickly, and I feel that Mr. Chomsky largely avoids to view the US as anything but a closed black box. Furthermore, and more strange, Mr. Chomsky largely downgrades other countries and governments as passive world actors, doing the dirty job for the US. This ignores the maze of interests and clever political skills of many political leaders, using the US to their advantage.
The world is not as black-and-white as Mr. Chomsky portrays, but his book is still well worth to read.

This is another eye opening book from Chomsky about American foreign and domestic policy. It covers the period from the end of the second world war, and focuses (as expected) on Iraq. It has some fascinating and shocking information (although a lot of it has been said elsewhere by various people, including Chomsky) and I would say this is a good starting place for those new to American foreign policy and practise. Sadly, considering Chomsky is a linguistics professor, this book isn't too clear at times. I found that for many pages the prose flowed coherently and put across the points extremely well, only to be followed by a couple of pages that were unfocused and hard to decipher at first read, and I've read many Chomsky and political books. This is the only reason this book got four stars from me. Overall, an insightful, fascinating, if slightly scary and depressing read. If this whets your appetite, try 'One No, many yeses' By Paul Kingsnorth for one portrayal of an alternative world view.

I give this book four stars because of the importance of its subject matter: a high profile intellectual encouraging us to think for ourselves and not be led by the right wing, corporate backed media. The more you think about it, the more chilling it is that significantly large swathes of the world's most influential people (Chomsky's 'Second Superpower') have been effectively programmed to not question the actions of the United States government, so that you are now viewed as almost sacrilegious if you dare to suggest that any of the US administration's motives might not be entirely altruistic.
A case in point is the recent proposal by Tom Hickey, the Brighton University Philosophy lecturer, who has had the 'temerity' to propose a boycott of Israeli Universities by British academics in protest at mistreatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories. He appeared on Channel 4 News to defend his proposal against Professor Alan Dershowitz of the Harvard law School, who opposes the boycott. Now, the significant thing here was not the fact that Dershowitz was disagreeing with Hickey, but that he was professing to be outraged that Hickey could even have considered such a boycott. If you watch the footage, Dershowitz gets himself wound up into a state of indignant fury, and berates Hickey for 'ignoring' human rights violations by China, Cuba, etc. He effectively accuses Hickey of being anti-semitic by 'picking on' Israel. The point, of course, is that Israel is a 'client state' of the US, and has enjoyed unprecedented backing by that country, and as such is beyond criticism, because to criticise Israel is to criticise the US administration. Human rights violations in China, Cuba and other 'non-friendly' countries have received a disproportionate amount of coverage in the Western media; we see virtually nothing of Israeli atrocities in Palestine, but do you really believe they don't happen? All people like Hickey are trying to do is redress the balance. Dershowitz's show of indignant anger and accusations of anti-semitism are pure bluff: he knows that his philosophy has the upper hand in this unequal struggle. Don't be fooled!
Chomsky's writing holds the attention; OK, he can be a little heavy on the irony, and his structures can be a little convoluted, but what he is saying is true and very important. Don't just take his word for it: think for yourself, widen your reading, but check your sources. But most of all, try and take national and political bias out of the equation.

No matter what ideological position one approaches this book from the truth still remains: that is barbaric acts have been committed by the USA or its support on innocent people. This will continue to produce repercussions because of the continuous cycle of cause and effect that any intelligent person should understand.

Looking at the situation objectively the magnitude of suffering caused by terrorism is the same for all people whether the attacks are caused by suicide bombers in the name of Islam or cluster bombs in the name of democracy. The truth is people die and families suffer in exactly the same way whether they happen to live in Europe, America or the Middle East, regardless of ones race, religion or nationality. All attacks create psychological and physical damage that traumatise innocent people for years to come, no matter who or where they are.

Do they not see that ALL this violence committed on ALL sides is obviously interconnected and is the root of the problem?

If we really care, and want to prevent these attacks happening again then the majority of decent people need to look at the true causes and see the ignorance of those who have lead us to this and say enough is enough.

This book clearly reveals a lot of the facts about the delusion of the inflated human ego reflected in the superpower. This prevents one seeing beyond the mentally created worldview of the dominant cultures because they refuse to look at alternative perspectives. I suppose it is quite scary for them to question assumptions about the USA (in which they happen to identify with) being the good guys. This is the problem; their self image is wrapped up in defending a lie. The truth is masked by the one-dimensional, hypocritical and ignorant assumptions that have become so part of ones identity. This prevents one seeing outside the box and allows those in power to continue barbaric acts in the name of freedom, democracy, Islam, Communism or whatever it may be. It is time for each individual to start questioning ones assumption that that has been given to them by families, societies, countries and media in order to see what is true.

'Even the Sun will die' by Eckhart Tolle is good to see beyond ideological positions. It was recorded on September 11th; it goes to help understand the root cause of why this self protective activity exists. J Krishnamurti is also a good source to understand why the human mind expresses such insanity in order to protect ones fragmented concepts over the welfare of humanity...