Noam Chomsky

This week our guest is Noam Chomsky, the linguist, philosopher, political activist, author and lecturer. Chomsky is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The originator of the Theory of Generative Grammar, which revolutionized the study of linguistics, Chomsky is equally - if not more - well known for his work as a social activist and critic. His work with Edward Herman, Manufacturing Consent, provides an analysis of news media coverage of international affairs, resulting in a five-filter model to explain the deficienices and shortcomings of the US news media.

Among his political writings are American Power and the New Mandarins (1969), Peace in the Middle East? (1974, Profit over People (1998), and Rogue States (2000). Chomsky's bestseller 9-11 (2002) is an analysis of the World Trade Center attack that, while denouncing the atrocity of the event, traces its origins to the actions and power of the United States, which he calls "a leading terrorist state.