Illegitimate Authority: Facing the Challenges of Our Time

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Summary

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In these incisive interviews, activist Chomsky addresses the urgent questions of this tumultuous time, speaking to the deterioration of democracy in the United States and rising tensions globally.

He examines the crumbling of the social fabric and the fractures of the Biden era, including the halting steps toward a Green New Deal, the illegitimate authority of the Supreme Court, in particular its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, and the ongoing fallout from COVID-19. Chomsky also untangles the roots of the War in Ukraine, the diplomatic tensions among the United States, China, and Russia, and considers the need for climate action on an international scale.

Illegitimate Authority exposes those who wield power in their own self-interest and plots framework for how we can stand together and fight against injustice.

‘One of the greatest, most radical public thinkers of our time’ ARUNDHATI ROY

'The West's most prominent critic of US imperialism . . . the closest thing in the English-speaking world to an intellectual superstar' Guardian

'Will there ever again be a public intellectual who commands the attention of so many across the planet?' New Statesman

© Noam Chomsky and C. J. Polychroniou 2023 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

About the authors

Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky is institute professor emeritus in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and laureate professor in the Agnes Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona. His work is widely credited with having revolutionized the field of modern linguistics, and he is equally renowned for his incisive writings on global affairs and U.S. foreign policy. The single most cited and published living author, winner of numerous international awards, Chomsky has written over one hundred books, including the bestselling political works Hegemony or Survival, Failed States, and Who Rules the World?.

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C. J. Polychroniou

C. J. Polychroniou is a political economist/political scientist who has taught and worked in universities and research centres in Europe and the United States. His main research interests are in European economic integration, globalization, the political economy of the United States, and the deconstruction of neoliberalism’s politico-economic project. He is a regular contributor to Truthout as well as a member of Truthout’s Public Intellectual Project. He has published several books, and his articles have appeared in a variety of journals, magazines, newspapers, and popular news websites. Many of his publications have been translated into several foreign languages, including Croatian, French, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Turkish. He lives in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.