With this study, Vanderbilt professor Barsky follows up Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent
, his first expository volume on the octogenarian MIT linguist-cum-political writer. It focuses on how Chomsky's political writings—often published in small venues and in reaction to developing events—get disseminated and used throughout the world. The result is an indirect approach to a compelling subject, namely, what are
Chomsky's politics, and what broader lessons can be drawn from them? Barsky begins by defining what he calls “the Chomsky effect,†whereby Chomsky's ideas get distorted and argued about in degraded form, whether by bolsterers or naysayers, resulting not only in bad arguments, but in undeserved infamy for Chomsky. He tracks the effect through the academy, the radical left, legal studies, literature and media, and along the way provides very lucid commentary on, and summation of, Chomsky's ideas. That said, Barsky, like Chomsky himself, refuses to distill Chomsky's thoughts to sound bites as he sifts through all the claims and counterclaims. That may prove frustrating for some readers, but it is fully in the spirit of Chomsky's own work. (Oct.)
