Latin America: From Colonization to Globalization

by Noam Chomsky, Heinz Dieterich, Denise Glasbeek

In conversation with Heinz Dieterich, acclaimed political commentator Chomsky reviews a continent on the brink of a major economic and political crisis. An indispensable book for those interested in Latin America and the politics and history of the region.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Politics, Economics, Philosophy, Sociology, The Americas

116 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1999

About the author

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. In addition to his work in linguistics, since the 1960s Chomsky has been an influential voice on the American left as a consistent critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, and corporate influence on political institutions and the media.
Born to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants (his father was William Chomsky) in Philadelphia, Chomsky developed an early interest in anarchism from alternative bookstores in New York City. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania. During his postgraduate work in the Harvard Society of Fellows, Chomsky developed the theory of transformational grammar for which he earned his doctorate in 1955. That year he began teaching at MIT, and in 1957 emerged as a significant figure in linguistics with his landmark work Syntactic Structures, which played a major role in remodeling the study of language. From 1958 to 1959 Chomsky was a National Science Foundation fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study. He created or co-created the universal grammar theory, the generative grammar theory, the Chomsky hierarchy, and the minimalist program. Chomsky also played a pivotal role in the decline of linguistic behaviorism, and was particularly critical of the work of B.F. Skinner.
An outspoken opponent of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which he saw as an act of American imperialism, in 1967 Chomsky rose to national attention for his anti-war essay "The Responsibility of Intellectuals". Becoming associated with the New Left, he was arrested multiple times for his activism and placed on President Richard M. Nixon's list of political opponents. While expanding his work in linguistics over subsequent decades, he also became involved in the linguistics wars. In collaboration with Edward S. Herman, Chomsky later articulated the propaganda model of media criticism in Manufacturing Consent, and worked to expose the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. His defense of unconditional freedom of speech, including that of Holocaust denial, generated significant controversy in the Faurisson affair of the 1980s. Chomsky's commentary on the Cambodian genocide and the Bosnian genocide also generated controversy. Since retiring from active teaching at MIT, he has continued his vocal political activism, including opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq and supporting the Occupy movement. An anti-Zionist, Chomsky considers Israel's treatment of Palestinians to be worse than South African–style apartheid, and criticizes U.S. support for Israel.
Chomsky is widely recognized as having helped to spark the cognitive revolution in the human sciences, contributing to the development of a new cognitivistic framework for the study of language and the mind. Chomsky remains a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, U.S. involvement and Israel's role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and mass media. Chomsky and his ideas are highly influential in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements. Since 2017, he has been Agnese Helms Haury Chair in the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona.

Reviews

[Alejandro Zuluaga · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book, in combination with Galeano´s open Veins this book shows more the political "conspiracy" of the governments of the United States and how they imposed and planned coup de etats and internal political turmoil in many Latin American Countries, great read, although some of the historical complexity makes me want to read much more about history...

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book by Noam Chomsky which is fairly easy to understand. It consists of a series of interviews during the 1990's. It has the usual thesis: that the United States is ruled by the rich, and corporations take the place of the people in our "democracy."

[Micah Landau · Rating 1 out of 5]

A simplistic "analysis" of Latin American politics and history replete with Chomsky's typical trite statements about the indisputable evil of the motivations of American politicians and foreign policy. Heinz Deiterich writes in the introduction to the volume that "Noam Chomsky provides us with the epistemological and political keys to the liberation of our America: a scientific understanding of the history of Latin America and the history of the United States." In fact, Chomsky is anything but scientific in his approach and his work, by distorting Latin American history and politics, diminishes rather than enhances our understanding of the region and does a great disservice to the movement for its liberation from the systems of global capitalism and imperialism.

Chomsky's distortions occur through his extreme moralism, which simplistically divides the world into "good" and "evil" and thereby precludes true critical analysis of either US or Latin American history or politics, and through his tendency to focus obsessively on Washington rather than grant independent agency to actors in the rest of the Americas.

This latter issue -- Chomsky's insistence that the path of Latin American politics is essentially decided in Washington -- itself smacks of a form of American chauvinism, the reciprocal of the traditional theory of "American exceptionalism." The United States, in Chomsky's view, is exceptionally bad -- and Latin America is nothing more nor less than its victim. This infantilism of the region -- which has many of its own problems independent of US foreign policy -- is both offensive in the extreme and a major obstacle for those seeking in Chomsky's work an accurate analysis of the region's politics which might inform their participation in the movement for liberation.

Finally, it should also be noted that the book is riddled with historical inaccuracies, such as the editors' minimal description of Bartolome de las Casas as a "writer of the sixteenth century" (although he wrote books, he was in fact a priest and a thinker and the description of him as a "writer" is misleading in the extreme), and with unfair mischaracterizations, such as Chomsky's intentional polemical distortion of Carlos Fuentes' stance on the history and legacy of colonialism. Reading this book, one gets the feeling that Chomsky intentionally misinterprets history in order to support his ideological position -- such a juvenile maneuver cannot but serve to harm the struggle by warping our analysis of the current historical moment. "Latin America: From Colonization to Globalization" is an absolute zero, perhaps useful to understand Chomsky but not at all useful to understand Latin America.

[Jenny]

In this book it talks about Latin America and the gaps between the rich and the poor. I feel real sad about how their life style are. Most of them are too poor to support themselves and their family. In Guatemala most of them live on a 3 dollar budget everyday and us" the American" mostly live on like a $40 dollar a day per person. This book made me feel that we as the upper class people bad. We eat what we want, we do what we want and we spend money on stupid things, but they can't eat and do what they want because they don't have the money.

[Maria Dimitriou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Μία ερμηνεία των ιστορικών γεγονότων που συντελέστηκαν στη Λ. Αμερική αλλά γενικότερα στον κόσμο από τον Τσόμσκι υπό την μορφή συνεντεύξεως. Πρόσθεσε στην κατανόησή τους αυτή η μορφή εξιστόρησης και μάλιστα κατά τη διάρκειας τους και ο επεξηγηματικός λόγος του Τσόμσκι. Μείον ένα αστεράκι λόγω κάποιων σημείων που δυσκολεύτηκα να κατανοήσω ίσως λόγω δικών μου κενών ή έλλειψης γνώσεων.

[Nativeabuse · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the better Chomsky books I have read, instead of jumping around, it stays on topic, and it covers most countries in South and Central america and how they have been oppressed and dominated by imperial forces over time.

Honestly most of Chomsky's stuff is just him parroting the same thing over and over and over again. This is a pretty good entry that I would actually recommend to someone. Not the same old rehashed crap, or at least not nearly as much of it.

[Guillermo Galvan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will shock and anger white Americans because Chomsky refuses to patronize anyone. He lays America's dirty laundry for everyone to see and smell. If anyone get pissed off at him for reading this book then just look up the sources. They're all there for cross reference. If your looking for a sobering look into US government policies, don't miss out on this one.

[Redbeard5451 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I especially like this book for the fact that when I was reading it in Oaxaca, Mexico, Lisa Bonet came up to me and struck up a conversation about it!

[Kschrum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good intro into U.S. Foreign Policy behavior towards Latin America...told the Chomsky way.

[Kelsea Kilbride · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some chapters felt like an intro, some I felt totally unprepared for. Regardless, it's a good, quick read on some the the major US foreign policy systems that we use to destabilize other regions in the name of "human rights."

[Ивана Девић · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read, very easy to follow and informative. It is incredibly interesting how many things Chomsky noted in his interviews remain very relevant in the current US-Latin America relations.

[Hamez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Legit read this in one sitting such a good concise telling of the history of the South American conquest leading up to today

[Bill]

Chomsky bitches in great detail about injustice. Sort of a detailed travelogue of injustice in developing Latin America.

[Abe]

Chomsky's general analysis of Latin American injustices.