The world’s leading intellectual offers a probing examination of the waning American Century, the nature of U.S. policies post-9/11, and the perils of valuing power above democracy and human rights

In an incisive, thorough analysis of the current international situation, Noam Chomsky argues that the United States, through its military-first policies and its unstinting devotion to maintaining a world-spanning empire, is both risking catastrophe and wrecking the global commons. Drawing on a wide range of examples, from the expanding drone assassination program to the threat of nuclear warfare, as well as the flashpoints of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Israel/Palestine, he offers unexpected and nuanced insights into the workings of imperial power on our increasingly chaotic planet.

In the process, Chomsky provides a brilliant anatomy of just how U.S. elites have grown ever more insulated from any democratic constraints on their power. While the broader population is lulled into apathy—diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable—the corporations and the rich have increasingly been allowed to do as they please.

Fierce, unsparing, and meticulously documented, Who Rules the World? delivers the indispensable understanding of the central conflicts and dangers of our time that we have come to expect from Chomsky.

Introduction 1
1. The Responsibility of Intellectuals, Redux 5
2. Terrorists Wanted the World Over 22
3. The Torture Memos and Historical Amnesia 31
4. The Invisible Hand of Power 44
5. American Decline: Causes and Consequences 57
6. Is America Over? 67
7. Magna Carta, Its Fate, and Ours 84
8. The Week the World Stood Still 100
9. The Oslo Accords: Their Context, Their Consequences 115
10. The Eve of Destruction 128
11. Israel-Palestine: The Real Options 135
12. “Nothing for Other People”: Class War in the United States 143
13. Whose Security? How Washington Protects Itself and the Corporate Sector 149
14. Outrage 162
15. How Many Minutes to Midnight? 179
16. Cease-fires in Which Violations Never Cease 189
17. The U.S. Is a Leading Terrorist State 198
18. Obama’s Historic Move 202
19. “Two Ways About It” 208
20. One Day in the Life of a Reader of the New York Times 213
21. “The Iranian Threat”: Who Is the Gravest Danger to World Peace? 218
22. The Doomsday Clock 230
23. Masters of Mankind 239
Notes 259
Index 295