The Myth of American Idealism

Summary

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From one of the world’s most prominent thinkers comes an urgent warning of the threat that US power poses to humanity’s future

The land of the free. The home of the brave. But what has America achieved in the aim of ‘spreading democracy’ — except wreak havoc across the globe and establish a reckless foreign policy that serves the interest of few and has endangered all too many?

In this timely book, Noam Chomsky writing with Nathan J. Robinson, vividly traces America’s pursuit of global domination, offering an incisive critique of the self-serving myths that dominant elites in the United States continue to push.

Offering penetrating accounts of Washington’s role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they examine how interventions such as these have been justified with noble stories about humanitarian missions and benevolent intentions but are now driving us closer to wars with Russia and China.

At once thorough and devastating, urgent and provocative, The Myth of American Idealism offers a highly readable entry to the conclusions Noam Chomsky has come to after a lifetime of thought and activism.

'One of the greatest, most radical public thinkers of our time. When the sun sets on the American empire, as it will, as it must, Noam Chomsky's work will survive' Arundhati Roy

'The west's most prominent critic of US imperialism . . . the closest thing in the English-speaking world to an intellectual superstar' Guardian

© Nathan J. Robinson and Noam Chomsky 2024 (P) Penguin Audio 2024