Understanding Power or Mandela

Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky

Author: Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky is universally accepted as one of the preeminent public intellectuals of the modern era. Over the past thirty years, broadly diverse audiences have gathered to attend his sold-out lectures. Now, in Understanding Power, Peter R. Mitchell and John Schoeffel have assembled the best of Chomsky's talks on the past, present, and future of the politics of power.

In a series of enlightening and wide-ranging discussions -- published here for the first time -- Chomsky radically reinterprets the events of the past three decades, covering topics from foreign policy during the Vietnam War to the decline of welfare under the Clinton administration. And as he elucidates the connection between America's imperialistic foreign policy and social inequalities at home, Chomsky also discerns the necessary steps to take toward social change. With an eye to political activism and the media's role in popular struggle, as well as U.S. foreign and domestic policy, Understanding Power is definitive Chomsky. Characterized by Chomsky's accessible and informative style, Understanding Power is the ideal book for those new to his work as well as for those who have been listening for years.

Publishers Weekly

For the past several decades, Noam Chomsky has become more famous for his trenchant critiques of U.S. foreign policy than for his groundbreaking linguistic theories. In this collection of material from his lectures and teach-ins, public defenders Mitchell and Schoeffel put his challenging, controversial opinions on display. The discussions a format that allows Chomsky to present his views in a conversational, accessible style confirm his wide-ranging engagement with world affairs. Whether the topic is Cambodia (he all but holds the United States responsible for the mass deaths under the Khmer Rouge) or the Middle East (where he sees the peace process as analogous to South Africa's creation of apartheid), he consistently blasts the United States for what he sees as its guiding principle of maintaining its own power while claiming to fight for freedom and democracy. Chomsky, who has published more than 30 books but is best known for his contribution to Manufacturing Consent, a critique of the way public opinion is formed, often excoriates the press for what he sees as a willingness to reflect the views of the "elites" rather than challenge them. But while he maintains a gloomy view of U.S. policies, he preserves a surprising optimism about Americans, arguing that the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements have made citizens more critical of the mass media. Some readers will appreciate the views articulated here and others will be infuriated; but for anyone with an opinion of Chomsky would be wise not to ignore this collection, which provides a useful and wide-ranging introduction to his analysis of power and media in the West. (Feb.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

MIT-based Chomsky revolutionized linguistics in the late Fifties, but for nearly as long he has been better known as an energetic and constructive debunker of American establishment politics and behavior. However, the current Chomsky contributes nothing to the legacy he established decades ago. These two most recent productions do not reveal systematic efforts to sustain or develop any aspect of his prolifically expressed critique; indeed, they are not so much authored as collaged, with Chomsky's sanction, from talks, after-talk Q&As, and interviews with generally converted interlocutors. Understanding Power draws mainly on vintage utterances from the Nineties, and its most penetrating passage takes on, of all pressing matters, literary theory. Chomsky, who is relentless in condemning the media as incapable of any function other than converting the masses to elite desires, just as relentlessly samples mainstream reporting sources for instances of corporate and government ill doings. In trying to illustrate that he is not a crude conspiracy theorist, he conveys the opposite impression. The shorter 9-11 could not have been planned, of course, though it mostly consists of interviews conducted while the calendar still read September, suggesting both the urgency Chomsky felt to get his perspective on the record and his utter disinclination to reexamine any of his cemented opinions about world affairs. Chomsky condemns the attacks specifically and then suggests that the deaths are entirely the responsibility of capitalist globalization, which nonetheless he asserts is irrelevant to the September 11 actors. However, consistency is even less a priority for Chomsky than humility. Apparently, Chomsky believes that he has discovered the concept of blowback, not to mention imbalance in coverage of the perpetual Israeli-Palestinian murder-and-misery fetish. For him, a direct line runs from Reagan's mining of Nicaragua's harbors to the flying of commercial airliners into buildings. 9-11 is a worthwhile purchase for public libraries intent on demonstrating (or risking) balance; Understanding Power is not half as useful as Chomsky's earlier, authentic innovations in political literature, especially Manufacturing Consent (coauthored with Edward Herman). Libraries truly wishing to ensure representation of the most lucid nonconventional opinion should first check that their subscriptions to the Nation a proud carrier of Chomsky for 40 years are current. Scott H. Silverman, Bryn Mawr Coll. Lib., PA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

See also: L'Environnement Juridique Aujourd'hui (avec 2007 le Guide de Recherche En ligne Légal)

Mandela: The Authorized Biography

Author: Anthony Sampson

Nelson Mandela, who emerged from twenty-six years of political imprisonment to lead South Africa out of apartheid and into democracy, is perhaps the world's most admired leader, a man whose life has been led with exemplary courage and inspired conviction.

Now Anthony Sampson, who has known Mandela since 1951 and has been a close observer of South Africa's political life for the last fifty years, has produced the first authorized biography, the most informed and comprehensive portrait to date of a man whose dazzling image has been difficult to penetrate. With unprecedented access to Mandela's private papers (including his prison memoir, long thought to have been lost), meticulous research, and hundreds of interviews--from Mandela himself to prison warders on Robben Island, from Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo to Winnie Mandela and F. W. de Klerk, and many others intimately connected to Mandela's story--Sampson has composed an enlightening and necessary story of the man behind the myth.

KLIATT

The subtitle is key to why one would recommend this book. Sampson, a journalist, had been a friend of Mandela's for many years and Mandela was pleased to cooperate. He provided many unpublished letters, memoirs written while in jail, and the like, while assuring Sampson that he would leave the judgments to him, the author. This is a long, detailed account and few young people will plod through it. However, Mandela is a true hero to many and even a cursory reading of this work could well show others why he is so adored and respected. His 27 years in prison are described at length. During this time he grew, became more thoughtful, and had a quiet authority over the other prisoners. "My current circumstances give me advantages my compatriots outside jail rarely have.... One is able to stand back and look at the entire movement from a distance, and the bitter lessons of prison life force one to go all out to win the cooperation of all fellow-prisoners...." (p.268). The beginnings of the Soweto riots are discussed, his struggle with the younger, more radical blacks and his leadership of the ANC, his relationship with other factions such as the Zulus and their chief, Buthelezi, the roles of the Americans and the British, and so much more are covered. This is a densely packed work that can be read through by the truly dedicated reader, but with its excellent index it could be read also as reference or for information on one aspect or another of South Africa, its recent history and Mandela's struggle. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 1999, Random House/Vintage, 672p, illus, notes, bibliog, index, 21cm, 99-18498, $17.00. Ages16 to adult. Reviewer: Doris Hiatt; January 2001 (Vol. 35 No. 1)