Who Rules the World? (The American Empire Project)

This book provides a detailed overview of the critical problems of our modern world. It is written by one of the most thoughtful and courageous intellectuals in a clear style, richly documented, and extremely well researched. It deals with climate change, nuclear dominance, the causes of terrorism, the refugee explosion and a lot more, giving views on causes and effects.
This book is strongly recommended to all who care about our world, especially politicians seeking a broad view of international relations. This

A book written for those who want to consider alternative viewpoints from the mainstream. Contains a fresh perspective not often espoused in the news media. Not without its faults, but there is no doubt it took courage to write and makes a number of good points. Recommended for those who are critical thinkers willing to make up their own minds about what's really going on instead of blindly ingesting what the mainstream news media serves up.

Very enlightening, informative and up to date. He lays out a lot of facts and historical background that coincides with much of the information obtainable from the non-mainstream/non-broadcast news or historical sources. I would have given the book a five star rating but I thought he came down harder on the Republican party and should have denounced both major parties equally for their shared roles and responsibilities. Also I am miffed as to why he doesn't really come out with an answer the real question in the title of the book. It's possible I might have missed or accidentally skipped reading something. I will however look forward to reading more of his very insightful books.

Extremely well though out and informative, Noam Chomsky holds nothing back as he explains many of the dangers we face in the 21st century. From nuclear proliferation and global warming to repressive domestic and foreign policies, especially those emanating from US, if you want to see a detailed analysis from the perspective not often giving in commercial media Who Rules the World is the perfect book.

“Who Rules the World” is an extraordinary body of work that illustrates how the insatiable desire for power and control has institutionalized political and corporate corruption. It exposes the lies that have shrouded the never-ending agenda to suppress emerging democracies through aggression and destruction. Carefully researched and documented, this book reveals the dark side of the great empire, one that is likely to result in the destruction of our planet either through environmental degradation or nuclear war. This book should be required reading for anyone who is eligible to cast a vote in America’s forthcoming presidential election. Beware of the wolves in sheep’s clothing who pander for your vote.

This book is difficult to review. It attracts attention because everybody is disatisfied with life at the present moment in history, Here we have infinite stories of abuse of power, actions based on power and money. Maybe too true, but very depressing. The narrative is well put together, but all the proof is in the bibliography at the end. Even heavier reading!!!

Extremely well though out and informative, Noam Chomsky holds nothing back as he explains many of the dangers we face in the 21st century. From nuclear proliferation and global warming to repressive domestic and foreign policies, especially those emanating from US, if you want to see a detailed analysis from the perspective not often giving in commercial media Who Rules the World is the perfect book.

“Who Rules the World” is an extraordinary body of work that illustrates how the insatiable desire for power and control has institutionalized political and corporate corruption. It exposes the lies that have shrouded the never-ending agenda to suppress emerging democracies through aggression and destruction. Carefully researched and documented, this book reveals the dark side of the great empire, one that is likely to result in the destruction of our planet either through environmental degradation or nuclear war. This book should be required reading for anyone who is eligible to cast a vote in America’s forthcoming presidential election. Beware of the wolves in sheep’s clothing who pander for your vote.

This book is difficult to review. It attracts attention because everybody is disatisfied with life at the present moment in history, Here we have infinite stories of abuse of power, actions based on power and money. Maybe too true, but very depressing. The narrative is well put together, but all the proof is in the bibliography at the end. Even heavier reading!!!

Not a bad book, certainly what I expected, plus I learned a bit more about history. I had an issue with the number of chapters on Israel-Palestinian problems, two of which I barely skimmed, there was just too much of it. And in the last chapter there were a number of paragraphs that were repetitions of previous ones. I thought I was somehow rereading previous chapters. As far as the content Mr. Chomsky is quite probably correct in his analysis. It is a depressing, sometimes terrifying, and illuminating read.

Nobody has influenced my thinking on politics and how the world (really) works more than Noam Chomsky. Having said that I find myself getting more frustrated with each newly published screed from him. It seems that with each passing book there is less and less info and analyses about what's going on in the world today and more references to, and quotes from, folks like Adam Smith and James Madison that have been featured in practically every other political book Chomsky's written. There is still some very good analyses of where we are today, but the re-re-re hashing is grating.

Mainly because of his stirring criticisms of American foreign policy and action, Chomsky is a hero to some and a traitor and villain to others. He has been a prolific writer, and this book is another of his energetic efforts to keep the spotlight on America by focussing on more recent events. He begins his book by reminding the reader that there are two kinds of intellectuals. Both are bright, intelligent people, who write and speak with the purpose of influencing the public opinion. The first category of intellectuals line up in service of the state, ‘support official aims and ignore or rationalize official crimes’. They are rewarded. The ‘value-oriented’ intellectuals (the honest and courageous ones, in Chomsky’s view) are punished. Intellectuals have a choice to make.

Chomsky goes on to remind the reader of American action, interfering with the stability of wide regions across the world. In the process of which, America has not held back its military power and supports its allies when they commit acts of violence against innocent civilians. He reminds the reader that Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down a missile from USS Vincennes. 290 people died. When Russia’s Ukrainian allies shot down Malaysian Airlines MH 17 the USA reacted with outrage. Chomsky asks a pertinent question: ‘We know why Ukrainians and Russians are in their own countries, but one might ask what exactly the Vincennes was doing in Iranian waters. The answer is simple: it was defending Washington’s great friend Saddam Hussein in his murderous aggression against Iran’.

His later chapters discuss the challenges to peace, and identifies several areas of potential trouble – Eastern Europe, East Asia, and the Islamic world. He discusses Obama’s use of the drones for assassination. Chomsky reminds the reader that even Osama bin Laden was still only a suspect who had not been tried. Chomsky’s message seems to be, what would America think were its enemies resort to the same tactics? He is probably does not think that this sort of argument will enlighten Washington. In May 2016 Obama visited Hiroshima and called for a stop to the spread of nuclear power. A week before that, he was in Vietnam taking selfies with a generation of Vietnamese who have not heard or felt American napalm. The danger of a world-wide nuclear war is more real than we think. Chomsky reminds the reader that during Reagan’s administration, Americans launched military exercises ‘to probe Russian air defenses’. In one of such exercises, ‘Russia’s early warning systems detected an incoming missile-strike from the United States, sending its nuclear system onto the highest-level alert’. The Russian officer decided not to send the message to his superiors and thus averted a Russian counter-strike. Obama’s administration is constantly testing China’s resolve in the South China Sea. As Chomsky asked before, the question can be refined today and put as, ‘what exactly is the US navy doing in the South China Sea’? Chomsky concludes his book by adding a subsidiary question to the title of the book, ‘What principles and values rule the world?’

Like other readers,I'll just say that the arguments presented in this book are Chomsky's constant reminders of the West's dirty dealings in world affairs that have perpetuated our current crises. I shouldn't have expected anything new, be it insight or solutions. Maybe it would be good to follow some of his sources for your own interpretation of current world affairs, because, in my very humble opinion, he has good, albeit, selective sources. He does point out some interesting patterns in the media, but I'm finding my outlook on the future becoming more bleak whenever I read his books. If you're proud to be an American you might want to stay away from this one.

Chomsky is brilliant as always but only cites a few women among the sources he cites. He writes about history I lived through and I learned some new facts and was helped by him to connect the dots. US commitment to fossil fuels dates back to FDR, he says, and cites Harold Ickes as a major influence on that administration as a Zionist. That may connect to Hillary Clinton's allying herself with the far right current leader of Israel, Netanyahu since Ickes, Jr. has been her close advisor. I knew FDR went to meet the Saudi king but thought the commitment to protecting our access to fossil fuels dated to the Carter Doctrine. Chomsky is definitely worth reading but he needs someone to remind him that women are producing outstanding scholarship he needs to note, too.

Chomsky provides detailed evidence, amply documenting Israeli genocide of Palestinians. I say America should get out, pull all military aid, and let them fight to the last woman and man and child standing - the only way of solving the problem of hate among all people of both sides. I am disappointed in American Ambassador Powers of UN. Powers proves that women do not have a special part of their nature that is better at resolving differences, or, some part of their nature that is better than men at eliminating war, for instance. Women are as mean spirited as men and when women are leaders they function identically to what women accuse men of doing badly.

The Kindle editions are very careless and sloppy. You offer WHO RULES THE WORLK, ed. 2017 (that includes an afterword by Noam Chomsky), and after I bought it, I got the edition of 2016 WITHOUT DE AFTERWORLD TO THE 2017 EDITION. It's not the first time that KINDLE gives me that kind of dissapointment: it happens often when the book has an afterword or postscript (some months ago you offered CAPITALISM by Geoffrey Ingham WHITH the postscript -edition of 2011. I bought it, and you sent me the ed. 2008 WITHOUT the announced postscript. In the future, I will be afraid (very afraid) to buy in Kindle. Sometimes the books come without index or contens; this is not so important, but it does show that your Kindle editions are very sloppy. An advise: you should FIRE the employee (the editor) that manage the editions of Kindle. Of course, I am going to cancel the order for Chomky's Book, BUT I WOULD NOT LIKE APPEAR IN YOUR RECORDS AS A PERSON THAT RETURN HIS ORDERS. Please make my message known by the managers of the store. Mario Arrubla (please excuse my mistakes, English is not my language).

Chomsky has written some 100 books over the past 60 years, mostly on semantics, the media, propaganda, international relations, and politics. He is generally recognized throughout the world as one of the most brilliant and insightful critics of American foreign policy -- though he usually doesn't get the attention he deserves in the U.S. I'm an admirer -- having read 6 or 7 of his books as well as watched interviews & read his opinion pieces online. "Who Rules the World" is his latest collection of essays: 23 of them (plus an introduction & numerous "notes") written I gather between 2011 & early 2016 that are between 800 and 4000 words. Some have appeared previously in newspapers & online sources (such as "Truthout" & "Tomdispatch" as well as his own website). It is wonderful to have Chomsky still so active & perceptive in his analysis & critiques, especially of American government policy. My slight disappointment with this book is that there is not much that is new here for those familiar with Chomsky, that even within the book there is considerable overlap and repetition, & that dates are not given for when the individual papers were written. Dare I suggest that the services of a good editor might improve the book and benefit the reader?

Noam Chomsky is perplexing for me. On the one hand, he examines, honestly, soberly, and unstintingly, Western governments' complicity is terrible atrocities around the world and calls those governments out for their hypocrisy and heavy-handedness. This I can admire. But then, along with showing how politicians meddle endlessly in the economy for the benefit and enrichment of themselves and their friends, he refers to "our dysfunctional privatized health care system" and free market, as if government meddling is part of a free society/economy. We don't have a free market, so you can't blame all the problems in society on the free market. Ultimately Chomsky (I believe) is a socialist, which is very strange because it would give politicians even more power than they already have under our current system, which is some ways, as noted by Bernie Sanders during the recent presidential campaign, we largely have in this country already. Chomsky seems to have read nothing outside of mainstream economics and thinks that Milton Friedman represents free-market thinking. In short, I don't understand why Chomsky doesn't advocate a more decentralized state, something like Switzerland. Read the book to find out things not generally reported in the mainstream media, but you won't find solutions here, or any that don't mean giving even more power to politicians.

After I finished reading this book, I felt about the same as Neo did in the movie Matrix after he chose Morpheus’s red pill. I once and for all wake up in reality: power rules the world. If I had chosen the blue pill, I would continue to believe that power implies value and responsibility. But I took the red pill and I now see full-screen that power instead fosters inequity, inequality and unilaterality.

Here is the latest book of political analysis by "America's most useful citizen" (so says the Boston Globe). Chomsky is a linguistics professor emeritus at MIT, and has been writing about political issues for many years.

The Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris has been called the most threatening assault on journalism and free expression in living memory. Evidently, the April 1999 NATO rocket destruction of Serbian state TV headquarters doesn't count. There were no calls for inquiries into western Christian culture in its aftermath.

Why wasn't the US military budget cut after the collapse of the Soviet Union? America must maintain its "defense industrial base" because of the growing "technological sophistication" of Third World countries. America invaded Panama, killed thousands of people, and installed a client regime with no Soviet threat. The pretexts given were nonsense, the invasion was a huge violation of international law and the media neglected to mention the US veto of a unanimous Security Council resolution condemning crimes by US troops during the invasion.

Elites and the political class consider Iran to be the primary threat to world peace. The average person does not agree. Polls in Europe show that Israel is the biggest threat to peace. In Egypt, only ten percent of the people regard Iran as a threat. Only a quarter of Americans regard Iran as an important concern. There is strong opposition to military engagement in an Israel-Iran war. A good step toward peace in that part of the world would to be declare it a nuclear weapons-free zone. America will never let that happen.

This book is a huge eye-opener. It has revelations on nearly every page, revelations that will never be mentioned by the US political class or US media. It deserves six stars, and is extremely recommended.

A book well worth reading, especially if you have not read Chomsky before. Startling ideas that will change the way you see your world. However, the book is in dreadful need of a good editor. Sentences are repeated throughout the book, ideas repeated, themes repeated. I expect that these chapters are edited from talks. It is a pity as I would have much preferred to read a more broad and deep discussion of the many important ideas that Chomsky brings to our attention. Multiple times we are told that there isn't enough time to look more deeply at a particular subject - but there should be, it is a book, after all, not a lecture. Or we are given something like this: "Words can hardly capture the US response to the Syrian refugee crisis, at least any words that I can think of." OK, but that assumes that I know what the US response has been - speaking to the choir. Maybe I do, maybe I don't. But a book implies a writer, and a writer's job is to find the words, right? Overall the book lacks cohesiveness. The last few chapters seem like after thoughts. I was also surprised to find that some footnotes referenced different books by Chomsky, rather than giving the actual source for a particular quote or idea! This is pretty sloppy. Finally, a bibliography would have been appreciated.

Naturally, reviews of Noam Chomsky's reviews tend to be polarized, like those of analysts of US foreign policy from the right and left, and full of attacks from conservatives. The big question to answer here is: does Chomsky offer anything particularly new here? I am writing this review to indicate to potential readers: most emphatically YES. This is the most thoughtfully constructed, well written, and readable book that Chomsky has authored in quite some time. If by chance you already have some Chomsky books on your shelves, Who Rules the World? will definitely still be worthwhile with its many powerful and surprising sentences and case studies. For those new to Chomsky's political writings, this is just the place to start right now.

I have not finished the book. But I am determined to do so. Chomsky's audience seems to be people already familiar with the history and topics he is writing about. If you are not familiar, it's easy to get lost. You spend more time researching what he is talking about, and less time reading the book.

Chomsky is a major author of politics in the world, great expert of militar equilibria. So he explicates the principal trends, with a style always complete and descriptions apted to the situations. The image should be that of an Amarica still winning, but the militar aspects after Obama are often paradoxal. We learn to know as the trends of last years don't converge so easy with those of Bush times. A world multi-polar gets the place of the old super-power of the Bush's and Clinton.

It saddens me deeply that some of the drivel published on this site has thousands and thousands of reviews, yet a book by one of the worlds leading intellectuals has but 89. Talk about manufacturing consent!

(italian version)
I wasn't surprised about the views of Chomsky on how geopolitics work. This book is truly food for the mind and one of the best and easiest ways to shake off the westerners' mindset on history, economics and ethics because you really understand how the world works and why those we think we elect are nothing but puppets in the hands of higher powers who decide who lives and dies on this planet.

The United States (US) has been fast losing the American century since 1945 despite still dominating the world. This is the central theme of the book.

On page 58, Chomsky mentions the pinnacle of the US success: “The United States had long been by far the richest country in the world. The [Second World] war ended the Great Depression, and American industrial capacity almost quadrupled, while rivals were decimated. At war’s end the United States had half the world’s wealth and unmatched security.” This paragraph gives four messages. First, if there had been no Second World War, the Great Depression (1929-1939) afflicting the US would have continued denying the US all the wealth and prosperity that it amassed. Secondly, the much-acclaimed hegemony of the US was ephemeral, as it for just six years (1939 to 1945). Thirdly, the US still craves for the revival of the glory of wealth and security it enjoyed in 1945. Fourthly, the rise of the US was both meteoric and incidental.

On page 59, Chomsky writes: “There was a period of euphoria after the collapse of the superpower enemy, replete with excited tales about ‘the end of history’ and awed acclaim for President Bill Clinton’s foreign policy, which had entered a ‘noble phase’ with a ‘saintly glow,’ as for the first time in history a nation would be guided by ‘altruism’ and dedicated to ‘principles and values.’ Nothing now stood in the way of an ‘idealistic New World bent of ending inhumanity’, which could at last carry forward, unhindered, the emerging international norm of humanitarian intervention.”

Then from page 69 to 83, Chomsky gauges different reasons for the US decline except two reasons. First, the US cannot win a war if it does not resort to mass killings of innocent civilians, as the US won the Second World War by killing innocent civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Secondly, the US cannot win a cold war if a third party is not ready to do its bidding, as the US emerged successful out of the Cold war in 1991 only when Afghans laid down their lives for one decade (1979-1989) to defeat the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, these two reasons or events favouring the US militate against its own legitimacy as the sole superpower of the world. In his book, Chomsky has failed to gauge that the crisis of legitimacy is the main reason for the US decline. The legitimacy is questioned not only by those who were losers such as Japanese or Russians, or who suffered for being the third party such as Afghans, but also by those who were bystanders such as the Chinese. This is why perhaps many in the rest of the world do not believe in the US altruism, principles and values, and instead look askance at the US version of a humanitarian intervention. And that is why hegemony of the US is being challenged in one realm or the other.

On page 229, Chomsky writes: “The Clinton doctrine [February 1999] affirmed that the United States is entitled to resort to the ‘unilateral use of military power’ even to ensure ‘uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources,’ let alone alleged ‘security’ or ‘humanitarian’ concerns.” This paragraph lays emphasis on unilateral military action for a humanitarian intervention, but practically, the US has preferred to work in a coalition. Supposedly, the US has learnt a lesson from the demise of the former Soviet Union: never go into the war alone. That is, make coalitions to let the allies share the stakes to help brave the ravages of the war, such as the ongoing war on terror that has engulfed several countries through suicide bombings after they allied with the US.

On page 250, Chomsky writes: “The next target of sledgehammer was Iraq. The US-UK invasion, utterly without credible pretext, is the major crime of the 21st century. The invasion [in 2003] led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people in a country where the civilian society had already been devastated by American and British sanctions [in 1990] that were regarded as ‘genocidal’ by the two distinguished international diplomats who administered them, and resigned in protest for this reason.” This paragraph mentions the two Gulf wars.

It is known that in August 1990 Iraq attacked Kuwait under the main ruse of declaring Kuwait its historical part; however, it is not known why exactly the US and the UK reacted so brutally against Iraq in 1991 by even destroying its retreating army to create the highway of death — officially known as Highway 80 between Kuwait city and Basra, Iraq — and by continuing with sanctions against Iraq, interdicting even chlorine (used for water purification), leading to the death of more than 500,000 Iraqis, mainly children owing to diarrhea and gastroenteritis by the end of 1995. One explanation could be that by attacking Kuwait in 1990, Iraq invited the invocation of the Eisenhower Doctrine announced in January 1957 in the wake of the Suez Canal crisis of 1956 to protect the territorial integrity of a Middle Eastern country, and the Carter Doctrine announced in January 1980 to use the military to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf threatened by the impending influence of the former Soviet Union in the Middle East.

Interestingly, on page 245, Chomsky writes: “China is constructing a modernised version of the old silk roads, with the intent not only of integrating the region under Chinese influence, but also of reaching Europe and the Middle Eastern oil-producing regions...Gwadar will be part of China’s ‘string of pearls’, bases being constructed in the Indian Ocean for commercial purposes but potentially also for military use, with the expectation that China might someday be able to project power as far as the Persian Gulf for the first time in the modern era.” This paragraph shows that the US again perceives a challenge to its influence in the Middle East, this time coming from China. Interestingly, the dwindling American century and the climbing Chinese century are fast approaching each other.

One thing readers are never going to say about Noam Chomsky is that he is renders them indifferent in their response to his books. You either accept or reject his arguments. Reviled in the right-wing press for decades as an intellectual who has dared to leave his intellectual comfort zone and comment on world politics, he continues to divide opinion today.

WHO RULES THE WORLD? is his latest attack on an America that he sees becoming too big for its boots. Obsessed with the idea of world domination through soft and hard power, capitalism, as well as "boots on the ground," the country continues to meddle in global conflicts in which it has really no right to be involved. Promises of withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq are empty; due to the desire to hold on to power, as well as control the forces of "evil" that they believe are threatening its future stability, the United States Government refuses to withdraw from the two main theaters of war in the Middle East. Nor will they ever stop trying to intervene in what is laughingly called the "Middle East Peace Process," so long as they continue to offer support to Israel.

The Obama Presidency promised something different from the rather hawkish rule of the Bush era. Chomsky suggests that this promise was nothing more than intellectual hot air designed to delude the people; in many ways Obama's military policies have been as harsh as those of his predecessors, and despite his professed commitment to racial and social equality, the President has shown little sympathy towards cultural difference.

The same also applies to his domestic policies, which have led to the United States becoming even more racially and economically polarized than ever. Readers wanting to find out why Donald Trump has become so popular in the recent Presidential campaign have only to look at this work: Chomsky's analysis shows a gradual disconnect between the interests of ordinary white people and other races, especially new immigrants who have come from South America and the Middle East. Obama has had his internal policy successes, such as Obamacare, but he has failed to take account of the social incoherence emerging in his country over the past decade or so.

One wonders from Chomsky's work just what politicians can do. In an increasingly mediatized world dominated by the soundbite, or the insincere promise given at a political rally, it seems that no one really wants to get down and address the issues head-on through consultation and negotiation. They would rather introduce cosmetic policies that look good on television but have absolutely no chance of success. What we are left with is a bleak view of America's future that shows no sign of alleviation.

Cracks are beginning to appear in the delusion we are being fed of living in a democracy.
What Smedley Butler and Dwight Eisenhower had warned us about, years ago,
has manifested itself.
No living person has attempted to bring this to our awareness more consistently
than Noam Chomsky. Banned from National Petroleum Radio (a prime example of the corporate takeover
of public arenas) Noam Chomsky continues at age 87, to warn us of the consequences of not becoming active.
I consider Noam Chomsky a national treasure.
I have no idea why this review mysteriously disappeared from review list.

Haven't read this one yet but reviewers are correct that he repeats himself. My problem with both reading Chomsky and listening to him on radio or TV is that he takes forever to get to his point. He's too verbose for me. However, I am with his analysis of world conditions, and the US roles in all of them, to the hilt!

Another great book by one of the last great intellectuals of our time. Have read about all of Chomsky's books and this was just another 5 star creation, loaded with facts and makes you think outside the box. Most Americans lack critical thinking and are robots following what the "news" says and not asking questions or doing research for themselves. Will be sad day when he is gone. Also watch "Requiem for the American Dream ", an excellent DVD.