Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant -- but still a portrait in one color
Review: This is a devastating book.Unfortunately, it is also shallow and one-sided. Chomsky is brilliant in summing up the world as it now exists, but he overlooks the questions of "why" as well as the Quislings who empower and enable the overlords of the marketplace. Let's start with the strong points. The book doesn't "expose" a secret cabal, such as the Protocols of Zion or the Trilateral Commission. It's like a good mystery story; Chomsky picks up facts from the public record, puts them together and proclaims in the classic style of a long-forgotten and very apt Doonesbury strip, "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!" "Guilty!" is certainly a mild term to describe US machinations in dominating the economies and societies of many nations. One of the weakest points is his lack of understanding of the power of Quislings. Canada, for example, once had a strong independent streak -- the 1911 election campaign was won on the issue "No truck or trade with the Yankees." But in World War II, an American-born and educated Liberal member of the government inextricably tied the Canadian war economy to the US in the Ogdensburg Agreement. After the war, this policy was accelerated. Canadians rebelled in 1957 with the election of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. In response, the Kennedy administration loaned its top political operatives to the Liberals to drive Diefenbaker from power. It worked admirably. Canada is now a one-party country with a branch-plant economy. Liberals have run the national government for all but 18 of the past 70 years, and now control provincial governments covering 80 percent of the people. A similar obsequious servitude is true in many countries. In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair is America's poodle. In Mexico, President Vicente Fox was American-trained, American-employed and American-owned before being elected and establishing a "special relationship" with President George Bush. He's not even a poodle; he's more like a chihuahuita -- an excitable little bundle of snippy dippy barks. It's how business, religions and other empires are always built. In every society, at least 10 percent of people are chronic kickers who will join any outsider. Empires are built on luring that dissatisfied 10 percent to overturn the old regime. Surely Chomsky has seen this in his own MIT classes -- from teacher's pets to those who are perennial doubters of his wisdom and learning. Except for updating the list of the guilty, his observations are old. In the 1920s, Will Rogers read in the newspapers of US gunboats being sent up the Yangtzee River "to defend American interests." In response, Rogers asked how Americans would feel if China sent its gunboats up the Mississippi to defend the Chinese laundries in St. Louis. Chomsky is simply somewhat more acerbic. There's an old saying that it takes two to make a fight. Well, it takes two to make an empire -- those who want to rule, and those who see great advantage in being ruled by the rich and powerful. It's like the "patrone" society in Latin America; many people see a definite advantage in being subject to a strong dynamic ruler. Okay, so Bush is a chowderhead. Despite that, many foreigners see a definite advantage in being part of a strong dynamic American society. Likewise, Vidkun Quisling thought it was a great advantage to be part of a dynamic Nazi society. In Canada, the sachems of the Liberal Party have long favored economic union with the US. It's the same for Tony Blair, Vicente Fox and dozens of other leaders. There's no end of volunteers who want to serve the rich and powerful. Chomsky does a brilliant job in outlining American complicity in building an empire. But, he also needs to understand the motives of collaborators. He could start with Liberal politicians in Canada, or he could ask why so many French were enthusiastic collaborators with the Germans during World War II. He needs to understand that it takes two to make a hegemony. He is brilliant in painting a portrait in black and white; unfortunately, he limited his palette to one color.
Rating: 
Summary: Watch out for the facts, they may change your mind.
Review: I shall not repeat what several other reviewers have said, but here is a personal reactive view. I have read a fair amount of modern history, and was only vaguely aware (like most Americans) of the many of Chomsky's facts and assertions. Some were so startling that I felt I needed to verify. After researching four and finding them unassailable, I stopped trying to fault the facts. The indictment of US foreign policy that Chomsky devolves from these facts is at such variance with our view of ourselves that one is inclined to look for an explanation. If the facts are not false, then perhaps the interpretation is the problem, so I examined the logic by re-reading the book with careful attention to the relationship between facts and conclusion. There are weaknesses in some places where an argument depends on "respected commentator" or some other unsupported assertion. However, even if one throws out all of the marginal cases, he is still left with a great deal for which to account--a paradigm changer for the honest and open minded, and something to be reviled and suppressed for those determined to believe that Americans are the good guys who go around the world altruistically stamping out evil. Chomsky stops short of a monolithic conspiracy theory, but the pattern of behavior of the US over the last 60 years that is painted by this book is remarkably consistent and disturbing.
Rating: 
Summary: Rule of Law Can Happen Only After World Conquest
Review: Chomsky is so silly! He believes in democracy! He thinks it is possible! Democracy has always been nothing but a technique of rule by a cohesive elite, a method to obtain the consent of the governed! It can be nothing else! Further, Chomsky goes on to confound anarchy (ability of groups and individuals to act INDEPENDENTLY with regard to an overarching authority) with his precious "democracy"! What an idiot! He can't be that stupid! The "rule of law" Chomsky would like to see on the international stage cannot come about until some elite conquers the world. Frankly, I hope it is America, not China, Russia, the Vatican, the EU, or Islam! The only alternative on the table is which Imperialism will win? What type of world order will be imposed? America must drastically increase its ruthlessness if the rule of law is ever to be imposed world-wide! Chomsky cannot be so stupid as to not realize the above points. I cannot but conclude he want an Imperialism other than the Anglo-Ameircan cabal to win!
Rating:
Summary: Superb Scholarship, Impeccable Research
Review: Noam Chomsky has done it again. With his latest book, "Hegemony or Survival, America's Quest for Global Dominance," Chomsky presents a thorough, meticulously-researched indictment of prevailing American foreign policy - a policy which, as Chomsky correctly observes, is sure to lead to disaster for not only the United States, but ultimately, the entire world. Chomsky vividly illustrates the great alarm that is now pervasive even among the American foreign policy establishment as it struggles to come to terms with an administration that has so recklessly endangered American national security through its single-minded focus on securing a global "Pax Americana." As far-fetched as these claims may sound to many, Chomsky's documentation is irrefutable, and his research impeccable. Chomsky provides an even-headed critique of our current course through a rational examination of the frightening consequences that are sure to follow. While his detractors are sure to resort to their usual accusations of virulent, knee-jerk anti-Americanism, asking any of them to substantiate their utterly baseless (and woefully ignorant) allegations through actually refuting the vast amounts of factual evidence Chomsky cites in his endnotes will prove to be nothing more than an exercise in futility - Chomsky's analysis is formidable, and it rests on a remarkable synthesis of practically-undeniable evidence. I'd recomend this book highly for anyone seeking to put the policies of the second Bush administration into a more fitting historical context. It is only through analyzing our current course in a post-September 11th world through this wider historical context that we find ourselves properly equipped to dissect the mindset of the current administration's foreign policy apparatus and the inevitable implications of its unabashed quest for global domination.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: Hegemony or Survival continues Noam Chomsky's critique of post-WW II American foreign policy, and puts recent developments squarely in the context of the evidence for American policymakers' willingness to risk the human race's survival in their quest for global hegemony. In the book Chomsky judiciously writes little about these policymakers' motives. Instead, he continues to document what is no longer merely evidentiary - the indisputable facts of the enormous risks American foreign policymakers have taken (and are still taking), the incalculable costs they've imposed (and are still imposing), and what I find most interesting, the concealment in effect of those things from the American polity. It would be daunting to try to do justice to the Hegemony's details in less than an essay, and especially in regard to the befuddlement of the American public about foreign affairs. But for readers who feel that what they've read still leaves them unclear about Chomsky's methodology in the latter regard, I quote a concise description of it by a forum participant at the website of the American Empire Project, with which Professor Chomsky is associated: "Chomsky collects undisputed facts about the government that are given very little emphasis (if any at all ) in the media. He then identifies patterns from these facts. He shows that the rationale given by politicians and pundits in the media describing foreign policy usually conflict with these patterns." My one, literal, difficulty with Hegemony was that there's a ("linguist's"?) sentence here and there whose grammar eluded me. I very much welcomed Chomsky's use of America's operations against communist Cuba as examples of many of the book's main themes. America's perpetual, covert war against Castro from 1959 exemplified this country's (characteristic) use of international terrorism against a country known to constitute no threat to us. The covert war became overt (characteristically) with the Bay of Pigs in 1961, and then brought the world to the brink in October, 1962, after which crisis, it continued! The Bay of Pigs and the Missile Crisis could not have been more publicized, of course, but even the "covert" operations preceding and succeeding the highly public flash points were not really secret. They were just given "very little emphasis (if any at all) in the media", and where they surfaced they were provided "rationales" by "politicians and pundits in the media" conforming to American cold-war assumptions (see above quotation). Perversely in part I suppose, I also very much appreciated the author's sarcasms, which I don't recall having read in his writings before. For example, on page 175 of the Metropolitan Books First Edition: "More than half of Qalquila's agricultural lands were reported to have been confiscated, to be annexed to Israel, with the munificent offer of onetime compensation equal to the market price of one year's harvest."
My supposition is that his sarcasm reflects Chomsky's growing frustration with the relative ineffectiveness of mere rationality to curtail "politicians and pundits in the media describing foreign policy" from relegating "undisputed facts" (see above quotation) to "historical black holes," to be "disappeared from history" or "erased from history" (in Chomsky's words). I don't refer to those words of Chomsky's as his sarcasms, but those words also reflect their author's frustration, since ultimately what empowers American policymakers to pursue their goal of world military dominance is that undisputed facts are daily being erased from the present (not from history) by the Great American Money-Babble. But these are bad times, as Eric Hobsbawm recently noted with such understatement in his wonderful autobiography. Hegemony or Survival reprises, deepens, broadens, and raises to the highest level Chomsky's critique; it is stunningly organized; and it illustrates more growth by the most politically astute academic-polemicist in the world. The book looks the most globally terrifying aspects of our bad times dead in the face. It is a brilliant book.
Rating: 
Summary: Substantive, articulate and not what Americans want to hear.
Review: Turn off Survivor and educate yourself.
Rating: 
Summary: Unconvincing
Review: Ok. I tried. Many reviewers said - "read Chomsky." So I did. Mr. Chomsky makes his first factual error on page 2. He invokes junk science on page 3. He thoroughly documents and footnotes the options of those who agree with him. He quotes his enemies out of context. He sees conspiracy everywhere. This book will become an ultimate example of exactly what Mr. Chomsky rails against - propaganda. He seems to attempt to convince me of two basic points: that the entire world is run by a conspiracy of the very few - led by the Bush White House. Labor unions, political parties, the electorate, non government organizations, business organizations of all sizes have no power whatsoever. Satisfying, I suppose, to paranoids but not very realistic. His second premise is that the actions of these particular few (i.e. the Bush policy makers) are putting the entire human race at risk of extinction. (He dismisses the Cold War out of hand - it was a propaganda effort by the US) Ultimately, Chomsky suggests that the United Nations should run the world as a world government (after all, all those dictatorships should know how to run the world right!) Then we can all "save the earth." I am glad that I don't live in Chomsky's head. If you do, you will love this book. Otherwise, I don't think you will find it either insightful or useful. Yes, the United States has done bad things. But Chomsky doesn't enlighten - he rails. I suggest you read Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man, Harris' Civilization and Its Enemies: the Next Stage of History and Mead's Power, Terror, Peace, and War: America's Grand Strategy in a World at Risk. You may disagree with their point of view, but at least they have a point of view beyond "Bush is evil."
Rating:
Summary: The politics of American aristocracy.
Review: "Hegemony or Survival" , published by Noam Chomsky in 2003, almost two years after the holocaust of 11/9 , portrays in a very descriptive and detailed manner, the ways and means a very small and privileged political elite in the USA conducts the destinies of the whole world, since the fall of Britain from its imperial heights of world domination after World War I. The likes of George W.Bush and his father, sarcastically named George Bush I and George Bush II by the author, as to denote a political autocracy in the States, are accompanied by Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, just to name a few American presidents of the XX century, all, in the author's radical view, banded together on a common ground of arrogance of and defiance to international established law (World Court, the United Nations, etc..), in order to secure to the United States and the goals established by the elite, the access to the strategic world resources demanded by the American collosus, oil primarily. The recent war in Iraq is in this way analysed as less recent wars in Middle East, Latin America and Africa, all of them occasioned and motivated by the power greed of the American government. It seems that from the radical perspective taken by the author, it makes no difference to world balance whether power is exerted by a Republican or Democrat, all of them adopting a political posture most convenient to American strategic interests. Traditional political allies of the USA like Britain, Israel and Turkey are portrayed on a very debasing light, given the knee-jerk posture they adopt vis-'a-vis the Americans.
Still following the author's view, the only power strong enough to counterpoise the ravages perpetrated in the world by American arrogance, is world public opinion, specially outside the USA, given the exposure of the latter to what Noah Chomsky calls the "manufacturing of consent", attained via rigid media internal control. The book is a sharp rebuke to the posture adopted by sucessive generations of American political leaders, but unfortunately does not address ways or presents realistic proposals to get America and the world out of the mess we are all in, being, in any way, a good reading to anyone interested in the making of of international power politics of the supreme power and world politics of the second half of the XX century. I don't quite agree with the author all the time, but think his is a lucid view on many present issues of earth politics
Rating:
Summary: Partly convincing, but not for main thesis
Review: Chomsky's thesis proposes that a small group of powerful Americans (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their backers, or BCR&co) are seeking world wide hegemony for the United States. To that end, they manipulate the media and seek to create precedence for pre-emptive war in international law. Chomsky's analysis is impressive and the facts he presents are disturbing, especially where he describes >>how<< BRC&Co are planning their diplomacy, but he strikes too idealistic a pose. Yes BRC&co obviously try to manipulate the media, but all politicians use spin to do this. Yes, BRC&co are seeking to establish preventive war (as opposed to pre-emptive war, an interesting distinction well explained by Chomsky) by the US as valid international law but they are in fact meeting with opposition from most governemnts, most importantly from Europe. In the end, the book's thesis is questionable. Chomsky clearly shows that the US is opposed to current international law, but he does not show the US is opposed to the concept of international law. The US is not seeking to rule the world, it is seeking to protect itself from threats that can originate anywhere in the world. The US already recognizes the need to share power with other forces, but it refuses to accept the current status of international law, as embodied by the United Nations. Still while he might fail to prove his thesis, readers are left with disturbing facts about the means BRC&co. Ben Franklin said 250 years ago that those who desire security at the expense of liberty deserve neither. That statement is too cut and dry, but the principle deserves respect. We should perhaps view with more concern BRC&co's violation of well-established domestic laws rather than worry about their plans for changing the still weak international system.
Rating:
Summary: Ignore them...
Review: Ignore all of the anti-intellectual conservatives who post. An intellectual conservative would at least note how well constructed and thought out Mr. Chomsky's argument is. The book is clearly liberal if you do not want to read a liberal book than don't buy a book by a socalist I would hope to the average adult this would seem to be common sense. At least Chomsky makes his case in a thought provoking way unlike many extremist conservative authors namley Anne Coulter, and Michael Savage.
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