Rating: 
Summary: First exposure to Chomsky - will inspire critical thought
Review: This is the first work of any form of I've ever read of Chomsky and I picked it up as an afterthought. I was more than pleasantly surprised. He has some very interesting and, more importantly, very unique ideas on a variety of social and political issues. He is incredibly smart and doesn't engage in the pure logical fallacies or rantings that many in this genre do. While I don't agree with a number of his ideas, they are challenging and require critical thought if you wish to dismiss them.As a simplified example, he raises the point that it is a complete fallacy to retrospectively judge 20th-century socialism as a failure simply by comparing the status of past and present communist countries with capitalist ones. At the turn of the century, Russia and most of Eastern Europe were extremely backwards in comparison to the West. He posits that Russia was closer in economic and social development to Brazil than the U.S., and has similar population and natural resources, etc. to Brazil. Brazil has been under the sphere of U.S. influence the last century, but compare Russia and Brazil today and you cannot roundly say the Russian system failed. i.e., look at how much technological and scientific and industrial progress Russia made in the twentienth centurya and take a look at Brazil today. Similarly, it is not proper to compare Eastern European nations to France or England; rather find countries that were comparable in their development when communism was instituted and compare those nations. If you compare U.S. satellite nations, i.e. nearly all of Latin America, to Soviet satellite nations, today who can really say that Nicaragua or Venezuela is better off than Bulgaria or Hungary?
This is just one example of an idea that merits consideration and requires you to formulate your own reasons why you may disagree, rather than just denouncing him. The only reason I would not give the book five stars is that the town-hall style presentation of the material is distracting and times and makes some chapters a bit rambling.
Rating: 
Summary: A Book Every American Should Read
Review: The idea that, heaven forbid, there could be anything fundamentally wrong with America and the powers, seen and unseen, that run this country is an idea that is so utterly horrifying to some Americans that they have no place for it in their minds. Such people should not read this book. They should continue to go about their sheltered existences, thinking that everything America does is peachy-keen, precisely because AMERICA is doing it: that makes it right. Those wanting an honest appraisal of what America does at home and abroad, however, could do no better than to read this superb and accessible book. Whether one agrees with Chomsky is not the point--the point is that he has ammassed more data about where we have erred as a nation in the past 100 years more than anyone else. He is the most completely original political thinker out there--not more of the vanilla that televison and the media serve up. So, use Chomsky as a tonic. Wake up. Whether you agree or disagree with his criticisms of our handling of poverty at home and Nicaragua and other foreign affairs issues around the globe, your mind will come alive with the facts he shares, and you will realize you have been asleep, because you have not been given the facts by our lousy media. Forget the politics. The facts presented in this book are the point, facts you cannot find elsewhere. No matter what your personal conclusions will be when you put this book down, one thing I guarantee you: your mind and your knowledge of the world around you will be more alive. And that is all we can ask of any book.
Rating:
Summary: First Chomsky book..definatly Not my last..
Review: For years I heard about Noam Chomsky and so I decided to finally read something of his. Wow.. While this book is not "written" but rather material from transcribed conversations (thus a bit difficult at times to read) it still is packed with interesting information and opinions and facts about the way the US has wielded power, tried to manipulate and control everything... whether they be Democratic Presidents or Republicans both parties have been accomplices to injustice and hypocrisy... We need a new paradigm for the way the US works in the world.. if we are going to survive as a nation intact... Peace
Caeli
Rating:
Summary: Read It Before You Review It !!
Review: This is a compilation of questions and answers from seminars and meeting in which Chomsky was a speaker over the time frame 1989 to the late 1990's. in which he addresses a wide range of social and governmental domestic and foreign affairs topics. It has been edited and compiled as a 400 page book in small font and has lots of information. I am relatively new to Chomsky. After reading some positive comments by some other reviewers at Amazon.com I decided to buy the George Soros book "American Supremacy" and Chomsky's new best seller "Hegemony or Survival". I thought they would be an interesting read and I actually knew a bit more about Soros than Chomsky. I had a distant connection with Chomsky in the 1960's when I was a student and we both worked at the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics - he being a well known professor and already famous and I was a lowly student. In any case I thought both of the books would in fact be nonsense but interesting reads. Previously I had just finished reading the very interesting book "Enigma of Japanese Power" by Karel Van Wolferen that describes how the Japanese society was forced to conform to a regimented life and submissive life through a combination of propaganda, education, and other social pressures - that the Japanese seriously refer to as "living in harmony". I was feeling good about our free society that was quite startled and taken aback when I read Chomsky's book. But after reading his book it is clear we are in a similar situation! We are inundated with propaganda but in different ways with different consequences. Chomsky has a basic set of principles that involve free speech, legal actions, dissent, etc. and I have now read a number of his books this being the most recent. It is better than some of his other books because of the size and breadth of the subjects covered. He brings a slight bit of humor to some of his talks such as "Mass Murderers at Harvard" or "The Computer and The Crowbar". He also attacks Canada for its lack of free speech - here it is a hate crime if you say certain words and in theory one can go to prison - just like Iran. I very much appreciate that comment and it is what I have thought all along. Chomsky is not a socialist "nut case" or communist or similar. His books bring a lot of solid logic and an underlying core of reasonableness and fairness and I would encourage more to people to read this book and his other books. Last week I read his book "Power and Terrorism" and I learned a few things in that book. I think many of his views are closer to the ideals of freedom and democracy than those of the vast number of our professional politicians. If you are a reviewer, please read the book carefully before you write the review. Five stars. My humble opinion. Jack in Toronto
Rating:
Summary: First Chomsky book..definatly Not my last..
Review: For years I heard about Noam Chomsky and so I decided to finally read something of his. Wow.. While this book is not "written" but rather material from transcribed conversations (thus a bit difficult at times to read) it still is packed with interesting information and opinions and facts about the way the US has wielded power, tried to manipulate and control everything... whether they be Democratic Presidents or Republicans both parties have been accomplices to injustice and hypocrisy... We need a new paradigm for the way the US works in the world.. if we are going to survive as a nation intact... Peace
Caeli
Rating:
Summary: Definite Page Turner
Review: This book is an excellent source of information related to every aspect of politics. I was positively surprised to encounter a chapter about Canada and the Quebec separatist movement. Noam is very well articulated and presents critical historical events in the most comprehensive manner possible, whilst silmultaneously maintaining an ease for the reader to assimilate the material. Additionally, Chomsky thoroughly discusses the perceptions of the public vs. the media and vice versa. He explains how the media tends to depict filtered details of events, in order to avoid political conflict and civil outbreaks. Excellent book, especially for those who are new to Chomsky's literature.
Rating: 
Summary: There are limits to conceptualism.
Review: It is almost cute to think that masterfully sifting information qualifies one to teach the rest of us about power. Not that the Ivory Tower doesn't have important powers of its own... but jeez. I've been reading Chomsky since the early eighties, and that aspect of his writing has remained unchanged; this latest collection being no exception. Chomsky understands a type of power completely; anyone foolish enough to openly oppose him either logically or rhetorically can attest to that. But there is another type of power that the plumber at MIT already knows way more about-- kinesthetic and experiential, the power contained in a nuclear bomb for example, the button of which Chomsky's finger has never rested on. The kind of thing that cannot be explained to you satifactorily unless you have actually done it. In this respect, many of the objects of Chomksy's withering criticism are far more qualified to expound upon power-- heads of state, corporate ceo's, etc. Is the pen mightier than the sword? At best, the pen is half the equation.
Rating:
Summary: perfect book for chomsky beginners
Review: This here is the perfect book for those who have yet to read chomsky's in depth work, or those who simply find Chomsky's ideas very interesting, yet find his work tedious. This book consists of nearly every political subject thinkable. He talks abour foriegn policy in the middle east, latin america, what was done in europe after ww2. He speaks of anarchism, socialism, marxism, and leninism. He speaks on the media, and "free trade". He discusses everything of political relevance. If you don't care for reading his other work because you find it too mind boggling or tedious, then i suggest this. Its all interviews, and its real straightforward.
Rating:
Summary: "We overcame their nutmeg"
Review: "Understanding power" is an apt title, for the theme underlying Chomsky's arguments is the imbalance of political power in the world. I used to think of "power" merely as leftist jargon-but Chomsky persuasively makes this concept come alive. This book is unique in several ways. First, it's not a treatise written by Chomsky on a particular topic. Instead, it records his commentary on a wide range of topics in response to questions posed at public speeches or seminars from 1989 to 1999. In essence, it's a written collection of conversations compiled by the editors, Peter Mitchell and John Schoeffel. This reader found the experience akin to having a conversation with a most learned man-having the chance to ask him any question, even challenging him on certain points. It's very educational, even if you don't agree with everything he says. You get a sense of his personality too. He's perhaps a little bombastic at times, and many may think, as I sometimes did, "How can he say such a thing?" Yet he does not act as if he's smarter than everyone else. Chomsky comes across as rather honest and respectful of those who ask him questions. He also seems to have a sense of humor. Chomsky has a remarkable knowledge of facts at hand that just roll out in conversation-bringing us to another unique feature: the editors have supplied a great number of footnotes to his comments, over 500 pages worth. They're not printed in this book but can be found at www.understandingpower.com. For easy reference, I wish the footnotes would be in the book. But in this case it was obviously not practical. Moreover, in placing them at a website, the editors are able to offer more in-depth references than one might otherwise expect-not just book cites, but lengthy excerpts from books. "Understanding Power" was compiled before 9-11 and before the ascent of George the Second. Chomsky gains credibility in my view for the consistency and relevancy of his comments in hindsight of the events that followed. For instance, someone asks him about "terrorism" and why a certain country all of a sudden became a treat to the U.S. Chomsky replies, in part, "The trick was to find somebody who's frightening enough to scare Americans into accepting a huge military build-up, but nevertheless weak enough so you could beat him up without anyone fighting back" (77). Is he talking about Sadaam? No. He's talking about Reagan and the media's association of Qadaffi and Libya with international terrorism. Yet he might as well be talking about Sadaam, for the same sorts of allegations were floated, for the same purpose, after 9-11. Also, Chomsky discusses at some length the Gulf War, the U.S. support of Saddam up until the Kuwait invasion, and the decision to leave him in power after the war for "stability" (165-70). Thus, his criticism of the U.S. policy toward Iraq prior to 2001 is consistent with much of the criticism leveled today-after the events in 2003. It's enlightening to hear Chomsky's views, not only about foreign policy, but other matters such as science (214), Adam Smith (221), the use of the internet (276), welfare reform (367) and a host of other topics. "Understanding Power" is the most accessible book I've read by Chomsky and one I do not hesitate to recommend.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent work
Review: This is an outstanding book for anyone who has heard about Noam Chomsky and would like to explore some of his ideals. Whether you agree with him or not, does not get away from the fact that this is an excellent book for the beginner reader or the vivid fan of Chomsky as the book is broken up into many sections of different topics that Chomsky discusses. The only down side to this book would be if you are not ready to open up your mind. If you believe questioning your government is unpatriotic, then this book isn't for you. Just because you question your government, it doesn't mean you don't love your country.
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