The Essential Chomsky

By: Noam Chomsky, Anthony Arnove - editor

Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell

In a single volume, the seminal writings of the world's leading philosopher, linguist, and critic, published to coincide with his 80th birthday.

For the past 40 years Noam Chomsky's writings on politics and language have established him as a preeminent public intellectual and as one of the most original and wide-ranging political and social critics of our time. Among the seminal figures in linguistic theory over the past century, since the 1960s Chomsky has also secured a place as perhaps the leading dissident voice in the United States.

Chomsky's many best-selling works - including Manufacturing Consent, Hegemony or Survival, Understanding Power, and Failed States - have served as essential touchstones for dissidents, activists, scholars, and concerned citizens on subjects ranging from the media to human rights to intellectual freedom. In particular, Chomsky's scathing critiques of the U.S. wars in Vietnam, Central America, and the Middle East have furnished a widely accepted intellectual inspiration for antiwar movements over nearly four decades.

The Essential Chomsky assembles the core of his most important writings, including excerpts from his most influential texts over the past 40 years. Here is an unprecedented, comprehensive overview of Chomsky's thought.

©2008 Anthony Arnove (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Book repeats passages

Not sure why, but entire sections of the book are duplicated. Might be a compilation error.

Great Read, Difficult Listen

Excellent set of essays. They feel more appropriate to read that to be listened to.

Berry gutt

Very eye opening indeed, a total recommend for those who may wish to give the other side a fair shot as it were.

Chomsky is essential

there are a number of essays in here concerning the field of linguistics that I found illuminating to understanding Noam's overall perspective. when considered in its entirety, you can see the wheels of his mind turning simply trying to understand humanity from its very basic elements and provable facts. he's the genius of our time

Noam is a true visionary humanitarian.

Loved it, was very eye opening as always. Plenty simple Noam genius chronicled! At least worth one read!

As insightful as cynical.

A must read for anyone who wants to understand what US foreign policy is about.

unfortunate narration

Would you consider the audio edition of The Essential Chomsky to be better than the print version?

constantly distracted by the theatrically pretentious reading. akin to a subtle Snidely Whiplash reading of Noam Chomsky.

Hard to listen to after the first hour

Where does The Essential Chomsky rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

High

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Essential Chomsky?

Demolishing BF Skinner

Would you be willing to try another one of Kevin Stillwell’s performances?

The reader goes off the rails. He gets sick, or bored, or tired, or something, and his tone and inflection stop matching the words and the ideas. The producer should have caught this. The reading perfomance is distracting, and makes it very difficult to follow Chomsky, who is a very dense and demanding writer.

Better as book

this book is really a collection of two books one on linguistics (too dense for audio) and one on politics. The latter shows the range of Choamsk's writings from Vietnam to now.

Ended my enamoration with Chomsky

While I love some of his ideas, this showed how petty and self-involved Chomsky is, often resulting in the subtle intellectual dishonesty of failing to hold his own statements to the same level of scrutiny that he so readily applies to everyone else.