"You have to speak truth to the people who will dismantle and overthrow and constrain power."
— Noam Chomsky (from Power and Terror)

In Power and Terror, his first new book following his runaway bestseller 9-11, Chomsky presents his latest thinking on terrorism, U.S. foreign policy, and the meaning and true impact of militarism in the world today, based on a series of talks and conversations in March and May of 2002 in California, Cambridge, Mass., and New York.

Beginning with the fundamental principle that the exercise of violence against civilian populations is terror, regardless of whether the perpetrator is an underground network of Muslim extremists or the most powerful state in the world, Chomsky, in stark and uncompromising terms, challenges the United States to apply to itself the moral standards it demands of others. Chomsky reviews the history of war crimes and delivers his now-famous analysis of the double-standards and hypocrisy of Western governments, and the role of the media and intellectuals. Power and Terror is an uncompromising critique of American power. With clarity and forcefullness, he places terrorist acts in the context of American foreign intervention throughout the postwar decades — in Vietnam, Central America, the Middle East, and elsewhere.

Power and Terror also includes personal reflections by Chomsky on the sources of his optimism, and the connection, if any, between his work in linguistics and his political activism. He credits the dedicated, painstaking, often unacknowledged but brave participation of ordinary citizens with making the world a more civilized place now than it was decades ago. It is perhaps this optimism that sustains his life-long mission: to bring facts to the public in the faith that, armed with information, people will use that knowledge to demand peace, democracy, and social justice.

The publication of Power and Terror coincides with the release of the film Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times, a seventy-two-minute documentary by John Junkerman.

Power and Terror, Noam Chomsky's highly anticipated follow-up to 9-11, is drawn from a series of public talks that Chomsky gave during the spring of 2002, as well as a lengthy unpublished interview. It presents Chomsky's latest thinking on terrorism, U.S. foreign policy, and alternatives to militarism and violence as solutions to the world's problems. Chomsky challenges the United States to apply to its own actions the moral standards it demands of others, and arrives at a surprisingly optimistic conclusion rooted in his faith in the power of an informed public.

In this, his first new book since the international bestseller "9-11," Noam Chomsky presents his latest thinking on terrorism and U.S. foreign policy, focusing on alternatives to the current course of armed provocation.

Noam Chomsky is the author of, among many other books, "Profit over People," and the international anti-war bestseller "9-11," which has sold over 300,000 copies worldwide.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 137-139) and index.

Bd. 10 = New edition of the complete works / Ferenc Liszt. Series II, Free arrangements and transcriptions for piano solo ;

Noam Chomsky is a professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author most recently of Hegemony or Survival, 9/11, and Power and Terror.