Book Description

The United States has repeatedly asserted its right to intervene against "failed states" around the globe. In this much anticipated sequel to his international bestseller Hegemony or Survival, Noam Chomsky turns the tables, charging the United States with being a "failed state," and thus a danger to its own people and the world. "Failed states" Chomsky writes, are those that do not protect their citizens from violence and perhaps even destruction, that regard themselves as beyond the reach of domestic or international law, and that suffer from a democratic deficit, having democratic forms but with limited substance. Exploring recent U.S. foreign and domestic policies, Chomsky assesses Washington's escalation of the nuclear risk; the dangerous consequences of the occupation of Iraq; and America's self-exemption from international law. He also examines an American electoral system that frustrates genuine political alternatives, thus impeding any meaningful democracy. Forceful, lucid, and meticulously documented, Failed States offers a comprehensive analysis of a global superpower that has long claimed the right to reshape other nations while its own democratic institutions are in severe crisis, and its policies and practices have recklessly placed the world on the brink of disaster. Systematically dismantling America's claim to being the world's arbiter of democracy, Failed States is Chomsky's most focused -- and urgent -- critique to date.

From Publishers Weekly

Forget Iraq and Sudan--America is the foremost failed state, argues the latest polemic from America's most controversial Left intellectual. Chomsky (Imperial Ambitions) contends the U.S. government wallows in lawless military aggression (the Iraq war is merely the latest example); ignores public opinion on everything from global warming to social spending and foreign policy; and jeopardizes domestic security by under-funding homeland defense in favor of tax cuts for the rich and by provoking hatred and instability abroad that may lead to terrorist blowback or nuclear conflict. Ranging haphazardly from the Seminole War forward, Chomsky's jeremiad views American interventionism as a pageant of imperialist power-plays motivated by crass business interests. Disdaining euphemisms, he denounces American "terror" and "war crimes," castigates the public-bamboozling "government-media propaganda campaign" and floats comparisons to Mongols and Nazis. Chomsky's fans will love it, but even mainstream critics are catching up to the substance of his take on Bush Administration policies; meanwhile his uncompromising moral sensibility, icy logic and withering sarcasm remain in a class by themselves. Required reading for every thoughtful citizen.

From AudioFile

Beware of unsupported assertions! Beware of zealotry! Beware of righteous indignation! In other words, take Noam Chomsky with a grain of salt. The ground-breaking linguist and vociferous political iconoclast launches yet another jeremiad on the world situation and American culpability. What he calls "failed states," the rest of us may know as "rogue states," those whose citizens are in chaos and fear, and whose policies threaten international stability. Without blunting Chomsky's message, gravelly voiced Alan Sklar ably emphasizes his eloquence and dials down his shrillness. He eases the way for the objective listener to judge Chomsky's interpretation of current events, to separate the wheat from the chaff of his arguments. Y.R.

About Author

Noam Chomsky is the author of numerous bestselling political works, from American Power and the New Mandarins in the 1960s to Hegemony or Survival in 2003. A professor of linguistics and philosophy at MIT, he lives outside Boston, Massachusetts.

Book Dimension

Height (mm) 242 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Width (mm) 164