Noam Chomsky

Institute Professor Department of Linguistics and Philosophy Noam Chomsky

Andre Vltchek

In On Western Terrorism Noam Chomsky, world-renowned dissident intellectual, discusses Western power and propaganda with filmmaker and investigative journalist Andre Vltchek. The discussion weaves historical narrative with the two men’s personal experiences, which have led them to a life of activism. Beginning with the New York newsstand where Chomsky first began his political education as a teenager, the discussion broadens out to the shifting forms of imperial control and the Western propaganda apparatus. Along the way Chomsky and Vltchek touch upon many countries of which they have personal experience, including Nicaragua, Cuba, China, Chile, and Turkey. A blast of fresh air which blows away the cobwebs of propaganda and deception, On WesternTerrorism is a powerful critique of the West’s role in the world and a testament to two lives dedicated to humanism, activism, and the search for knowledge.

From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare

On Western Terrorism

2015 Reprint of 1957 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition. Not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. American linguist Paul Postal wrote in 1964 that most of the "syntactic conceptions prevalent in the United States" were "versions of the theory of phrase structure grammars in the sense of Chomsky." British linguist John Lyons wrote in 1966 that "no work has had a greater influence upon the current linguistic theory than Chomsky's Syntactic Structures." Prominent historian of linguistics R. H. Robins wrote in 1967 that the publication of Chomsky's "Syntactic Structures" was "probably the most radical and important change in direction in descriptive linguistics and in linguistic theory that has taken place in recent years." Another historian of linguistics Frederick Newmeyer considers "Syntactic Structures" "revolutionary" for two reasons. Firstly, it showed that a formal yet non-empiricist theory of language was possible and more importantly, it demonstrated this possibility in a practical sense by formally treating a fragment of English grammar. Secondly, it put syntax at the center of the theory of language. Syntax was recognized as the focal point of language production, in which a finite set of rules can produce an infinite number of sentences. As a result, morphology and phonology were relegated in importance. "Syntactic Structures" also initiated an interdisciplinary dialog between philosophers of language and linguists. American philosopher John Searle wrote that "Chomsky's work is one of the most remarkable intellectual achievements of the present era, comparable in scope and coherence to the work of Keynes or Freud. It has done more than simply produce a revolution in linguistics; it has created a new discipline of generative grammar and is having a revolutionary effect on two other subjects, philosophy and psychology." With its formal and logical treatment of language, Syntactic Structures also brought linguistics and the new field of computer science closer together.

Syntactic Structures

Back in print, the seminal work by ''arguably the most important intellectual alive '' (The New York Times). American Power and the New Mandarins is Noam Chomsky's first political book, widely considered to be among the most cogent and powerful statements against the American war in Vietnam. Long out of print, this collection of early, seminal essays helped to establish Chomsky as a leading critic of United States foreign policy. These pages mount a scathing critique of the contradictions of the war, and an indictment of the mainstream, liberal intellectuals - the ''new mandarins '' - who furnished what Chomsky argued was the necessary ideological cover for the horrors visited on the Vietnamese people. As America's foreign entanglements deepen by the month, Chomsky's lucid analysis is a sobering reminder of the perils of imperial diplomacy. With a new foreword by Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States, American Power and the New Mandarins is a renewed call for independent analysis of America's role in the world.

Institute Professor Department of Linguistics and Philosophy Noam Chomsky

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