Noam Chomsky

James Peck

At the centre of pratically every major debate over America?s role in the world, one finds Noam Chomsky?s ideas - sometimes attacked, sometimes studiously ignored, but always a powerful presence. Drawing from his published and unpublished work, The Chomsky Reader reveals the awesome range of this ever-critical mind - from global questions of war and peace to the most intricate questions of human intelligence, IQ and creativity. It reveals the underlying radical coherency of his view of the world - from his enormously influential attacks on America?s role in Vietnam to his perspective on Nicaragua and Central America Today. Chomsky?s challenges to accepted wisdom about Israel and the Palestinians has caused a furore in America, as have his trenchant essays on the real nature of terrorism in our age. No one has dissected more graphically the character of the cold war consensus and the way it benefits the two superpowers, and argued more thoughtfully for a shared elitist ethos in liberalism and communism. No one has exposed more logically America?s acclaimed freedoms as masking irresponsible power and unjustified privilege, or argued quite so insistently that the ?free press? is part of a stultifying conformity that pervades all aspects of American intellectual life.

The Chomsky Reader

In Racing Toward the Abyss, a completely new set of interviews, Noam Chomsky addresses the interwoven crises we face today, and explores the promise of activism for confronting injustice...

Conversations with James Peck

Racing Toward the Abyss

Sirin Phathanothai

Sirin Phathanothai was born into one of Thailand's most privileged and politically prominent families. But at the age of 8, her life changed dramatically. She and her brother were sent to be brought up in Beijing under the direct auspices of Premier Zhou Enlai as he wards. She went swimming with Mao, was privy to major political and historical events and lived through Mao's economic Great Leap Forward. Then, during the Cultural Revolution, her world was torn asunder. Her brother was expelled from China and she was saved only by joining the People's Liberation Army deep in the countryside. But unlike many of her friends, she survived - and went on to play a pivotal role in China's opening to the West. Sometimes harrowing, and always highly illuminating, Sirin Phathanothai's story is a unique historical document as well as a startling testament to the human spirit.

Growing Up Among Mao's Reclusive Circle

The Dragon's Pearl

From a noted historian and foreign-policy analyst, a groundbreaking critique of the troubling symbiosis between Washington and the human rights movement The United States has long been hailed as a powerful force for global human rights. Now, drawing on thousands of documents from the CIA, the National Security Council, the Pentagon, and development agencies, James Peck shows in blunt detail how Washington has shaped human rights into a potent ideological weapon for purposes having little to do with rights—and everything to do with furthering America's global reach. Using the words of Washington's leaders when they are speaking among themselves, Peck tracks the rise of human rights from its dismissal in the cold war years as "fuzzy minded" to its calculated adoption, after the Vietnam War, as a rationale for American foreign engagement. He considers such milestones as the fight for Soviet dissidents, Tiananmen Square, and today's war on terror, exposing in the process how the human rights movement has too often failed to challenge Washington's strategies. A gripping and elegant work of analysis, Ideal Illusions argues that the movement must break free from Washington if it is to develop a truly uncompromising critique of power in all its forms.

James Peck

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