Imperial Ambitions

Conversations on the Post-9/11 World

By: Noam Chomsky, David Barsamian

Narrated by: Noam Chomsky, David Barsamian

In this first collection of interviews since the bestselling 9-11: Was There an Alternative?, our foremost intellectual activist examines crucial questions of U.S. foreign policy.

Timely, urgent, and powerfully elucidating, this important volume of previously unpublished interviews conducted by award-winning radio journalist David Barsamian features Noam Chomsky discussing America's policies in an increasingly unstable world. With his famous insight, lucidity, and redoubtable grasp of history, Chomsky offers his views on the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the doctrine of "preemptive" strikes against so-called rogue states, and the prospects of the second Bush administration, warning of the growing threat to international peace posed by the U.S. drive for domination. In his inimitable style, Chomsky also dissects the propaganda system that fabricates a mythic past and airbrushes inconvenient facts out of history.

Barsamian, recipient of the ACLU's Upton Sinclair Award for independent journalism, has conducted more interviews and radio broadcasts with Chomsky than has any other journalist. Enriched by their unique rapport, Imperial Ambitions explores topics Chomsky has never before discussed, among them the 2004 presidential campaign and election, the future of Social Security, and the increasing threat, including devastating weather patterns, of global warming. The result is an illuminating dialogue with one of the leading thinkers of our time—and a startling picture of the turbulent times in which we live.

©2005 Aviva Chomsky and David Barsamian; (P)2005 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC

Critic reviews

“If, for reasons of chance, or circumstance, (or sloth), you have to pick just one book on the subject of the American Empire, I'd say pick this one. It's the Full Monty. It's Chomsky at his best . . . necessary reading.” —Arundhati Roy

“How did we ever get to be an empire? The writings of Noam Chomsky--America's most useful citizen--are the best answer to that question.” —The Boston Globe

“Unique insight into Chomsky's decades of penetrating analyses, drawn together . . . by a brilliant radio interviewer, David Barsamian.” —Ben Bagdikian, winner of the Pulitzer Prize on Propaganda and the Public Mind: Conversations with Noam Chomsky

A must-have in your listening library

Noam Chomsky has important things to say about world affairs, the American government's role in them, in particular. His books, though well-researched and informative, can be a bit overwhelming to a lot of readers, myself included. This series of interviews with David Barsamian, an obvious admirer of Chomsky's, is a great introduction to what Chomsky has to say and what citizens need to do to improve the world we live in. Excluding the first interview, which is done over the phone, the sound quality is very good to excellent.

Bitter Socialist Opines

All should read or listen to Noam Chomsky. He snivels on behalf of our enemies, cries over the palestinians, bashes the civilized world.......and seems to think he's cool.
This man has hordes of the mindless and gullible groupies.

Educating the Ignorant

This book gives insight on how society at large is unaware of how the Bush administration has taken control of our country and is completely ignoring and misleading the people of America. Chomsky reveals how the Bush administration and previous administrations blatantly ignore our constitution and human rights for the promotion of economic interest.

Good food for open minds

The nice theory behind free speech is that, weighing the value of what another has to say, one can sharpen one's own ideas. Judging from the dull thud of the two reactionary reviewers to this audio book, it's highly doubtful they have actually downloaded it and listened to it. They make no point coming from the content itself, and in fact they make no point other than to question this country's leadership is of itself an act of treason and wrongness. (Beaucoups de brown shirts for the obedient ones, I say.) If we are forced to listen to a simpleton in the White House stammer and gush, we all should force ourselves to find intellectual antidote, for our own mental health, sure, but also for this democracy in which we live. Imperial Ambitions contains ideas that right wing ideologues should think through, and consider, and test in deliberation hid away from their fellow dittoheads. Then, if you come out thinking the same way as you went in, you can rest assured, refreshingly smug, that our national thinking is better led by a C- student, frat-rat, draft-dodging business failure with an intemporate demeanor, the common sense God gave wet napkins, and incredible family connections from a family headed by a full-time employee of the Saudi royal family. Which I guess makes our military, mired in sand of what used to be a mean neighbor to the House of Faad, sort of like your basic Brinks security patrol with wheels spinning on soggy lawn. This is what happens when you don't recognize Imperial Ambitions.

I Must Be A Crying, Anti-American, Groupie

The three negative reviews state that Chomsky: 1) "cries" and "bashes" the "civilzed world," "thinks he's cool," and has "hordes of mindless, gullible groupies;" 2) "drones about 'America- the real enemy;" and 3) is an "idiot" and "danger to the civilized world." A mirror image of these people on the left would say they are Right-Wing, Ultra-nationalistic, likely relgious, gun-toting fundamentalists, anti-gay, anti-choice and blindly patriotic.

I, on the other hand, would just like to point out the kind of vocabulary used by these reviewers compaared to the others who say it was a "great book" because Chomsky "says it as it is." Instead of bashing the Right Wing and the evangelists, these reviewers present clear and logical thoughts of why it is a good book. The others point to 'hordes, idiots, crying, groupies and a repetitive "danger to the civlized world."

Personally, one of the things I liked about the book is that the questions were good and the answers were better. And it was not read, but live. I have listened to this book twice already - because the information is important and I don't have a memory like Chomsky's. His thoughts and resources are truly unique- gathering and presenting information that is hard to come by in this day and age.

Now ask yourself: would the world be better off if everyone was like him and the reviewers that thought about what they wrote or would the world be better off if we were all like the others who call names and refer to themselves as civilized in the process?