History given the voice of fact....unmissable

This is a thrilling book. No heroes, no heroics, no opinions, no villains, no vilification - just the facts...laid end to end so that they speak for themselves. The moral pronouncements and appeals of other 'dissident' voices pale under the crystal objectivity of Chomsky's clear insight into where we are and how we got here. Ideologies are built up and peeled away with the words of the political leaders, the ambassadors, the resolutions and the briefings - verbatim in all their high minded contradictions. Words quoted, actions detailed, patterns established, understanding conveyed. Where is Chomsky in all of this? Unshowy, impeccable, scrupulous, reliable, authorative - he slips into the background and allows Masters of the New Imperialism speak for themselves. Authorial indignation, appeals to morality, the radical as romantic hero?....all rendered irrelevant against historical fact. Read this book and then recommend it to someone else, important doesn't begin to describe it.

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Factual content that changes your perspective

Chomsky helps you see things so clearly that his vision cannot be denied or undermined. A brilliant performance and a fantastic narrative that will mean I will get to know him more as I go through all of his work.

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Interesting and insightful

The content is very good - Chomsky has been comprehensive and expansive in his explanations. The book is circa 2003 so some of the points are more relevant to that time than to 10 years later. All in all it's well worth a listen and has a lot of extremely valid and interesting points and examples.

The narrator is American and I found his narrating a bit annoying - from the regular mispronunciation of hegemony as "he-jem-inny" (and yes, I know it's the American way, but is still sounds like English is being butchered) to his attempts to dramatise some passages. With Chomsky's writing, the whole point is that it is calm and matter of fact, so increasing the pace and stressing certain points in the narration didn't seem right and got on my nerves.

Overall, I would recommend it and say it is definitely worth a listen.

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