John Lewis Gaddis is not only the favorite historian of the Reagan administration, but he's regarded as the dean of Cold War scholarship, the leading figure in the American Cold War scholarship, a professor at Yale.
Noam ChomskyI know of only one country, at least to my knowledge, which has a dissident culture where leading figures, I mean, the most famous writers, journalists, academics and so on, are not only critical of state policy, but are constantly carrying out civil disobedience and risking imprisonment and often being imprisoned, standing up for people's rights. That's Turkey.
Noam ChomskyLook at the ozone story. As long as it was the southern hemisphere that was being threatened, there was very little talk about it. When it was discovered in the north, very quickly actions were taken to do something about it. Right now there's discussion of putting serious effort into developing a malaria vaccine, because global warming might extend malaria to the rich countries, so something should be done about it.
Noam ChomskyPresented with the claims of nineteenth-century racist anthropology, a rational person will ask two sorts of questions: 'What is the scientific status of the claims?' 'What social or ideological needs do they serve?'
Noam Chomsky[Internet] is kind of like a hammer. The technology itself doesn't determine how its used. It depends on the social, cultural and economic context in which the technology is made available.
Noam ChomskyThere's an interesting question, whether the anarchists had alternatives [in Spain]. If they did tend to support the government that had been destroyed, what were the alternatives? There was actually a proposal by Camillo Berneri, an Italian anarchist who was in Spain at the time, which is not a crazy notion in my opinion. He opposed participation in government and was against the formation of an army, meaning a major army to fight [Francisco] Franco.
Noam Chomsky