Is Noam Chomsky Anti-American?
Following is a comment made by Mr. Webster in the course of an exchange on H-Diplo in early April. It was in response to a comment by Russil Wvong, who questioned Noam Chomsky’s use of quotations. While I am not a Chomskyan, I must confess that the notorious Professor Chomsky is among the contributors to an upcoming book I am editing on East Timor, and I feel compelled to say a word on this topic, even among people obviously more versed. Chomsky is of course not a diplomatic historian first and foremost, and this may account for some of the resentment that is heaped upon him. His concern in writing about U.S. foreign policy, I think, is less to advance a theory of American imperialism than it is to examine “the manufacture of consent” in democratic societies. Insofar as he has a theory on American foreign policy, it is not so very different than that of (say) William Appleman Williams and others in the “open door” school. Even as a polemicist, Chomsky must take a back seat to Williams.
