Noam Chomsky 
Culture of Terrorism 

Chomsky ends his preface to Culture of Terrorism with the words, ‘As the latest inheritors of a grim tradition, we should at least have the integrity to look in the mirror without evasion’. The tradition to which he is referring is none other than the Western imperial project and in encouraging Americans to pursue integrity, he dissects the events of just one year – 1986 – at the height of the Reagan Era and describes American involvement in acts of supreme state terror, both open and clandestine, to present a case study which has great relevance today and whose lessons must never be forgotten.

Table of Content

Preface to the 2015 Edition

Preface

Introduction: The Public and State Violence

Part I: The Scandals of 1986

1. The Challenge

2. The Cultural-Historical Context  

3. The Problems of Clandestine Terrorism

4. The Limits of Scandal

5. The Culture of Terrorism

6. Damage Control

7. The Perils of Diplomacy

8. The Reality That Must be Effaced: Iran and Nicaragua

Part II: Further Successes of the Reagan Administration

9. Accelerating the Race toward Destruction

10. Controlling ‘Enemy Territory’

11. Freedom of Expression in the Free World

Part III: The Current Agenda

12. The Threat of a Good Example

13. The Fledgling Democracies

14. Restoring Regional Standards

15. Standards for Ourselves

16. Prospects

Notes

Index

About the author

Noam Chomsky is one of the most cited scholars in history and has profoundly shaped contemporary understanding of American politics. An ally of anarcho-syndicalists the world over, he has authored numerous books on linguistics, history and politics. He is Institute Professor (emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT, and Laureate Professor of Linguistics and Agnese Nelms Haury Chair in the Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona.