Any Chomsky readers out there?

[LostInAnomie]

I have never read any of his works but I have heard rave reviews. What would be a good book to start with?

[toddzilla]

1. deterring democracy, or "hegemony or survival"

I like chomsky's work, but once you learn his viewpoint, and read enough of it, it get's pretty repetitive. I'm not saying it isn't good reading, it's just that once you get what he has to say it's not hard to figure out where he's going with most stuff.

i pretty much agree with him on everything though.

[Wonk]

2. What Uncle Sam Really Wants

might be a good place to start.

The entire book is online here
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/sam/

Much more Chomsky available here
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/index.cfm
http://www.zmag.org/chomskybooks.htm

edit:
Here's a nice interview with him about his book Hegemony Or Survival.
5 M mp3
76 M QuickTime movie

[FDRrocks]

3. Manufacturing Consent is his seminal work...

It completely blows the liberal/conservative media bias allegations out of the water. Highly recommend.

His pamphlet books are his most accessible works though. The first book I read of his was "9/11" and that got me turned onto his stuff, although I now try to avoid the Q & A books he has done.

[Interrobang]

4. "Manufacturing Consent" is pretty good, although slow going...

Personally, I read more of Chomsky's linguistics stuff than his political stuff, though. :)

You should see the paper where Chomsky delivers an academified Bartcop-style beatdown on B.F. Skinner for messing in linguistics... He wrote it when he was still quite unknown in the field -- talk about a reputation-maker!

http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00001148/00/chomsky.htm

Funniest academic paper. Ever.

[cambie]

5. Audio

from a recent gathering in Vancouver.
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/downloads/0321chomskyvancouver.mp3

[Djinn]

6. As well as ones people have mentioned already

"Necessary Illusions: Thought Control In Democratic Societies" - is really good. Goes into the same sort of topics as Manufacturing Consent but specifies the media role and how we get told we have a diverse media when we really only see two slightly different takes on the same story.

There are a lot of "interview" books (Odonian Press publish quite a few) that are easier reading - good ones are: "Secrets, Lies and Democracy" "The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many" and "What Uncle Sam Really Wants" - which I think someone's mentioned.

Also if you're interested in the Israel/Palestine sitch "The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians" is great and really well documented but it's really heavy going and you need a fair bit of background knowledge.

There's a huge volume of audio stuff available too - a lot of it you can download - http://www.zmag.org/chomskyaudio.htm

And for lighter reading there's tonnes of short pieces on the net too
http://www.zmag.org/chomskyletters.htm