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Noam Chomsky and the Fight Against Empire

On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Daniel Bessner on a radical critic’s achievements and the limits of protest.

Jeet Heer

March 9, 2025

Noam Chomsky photographed at his office at MIT.(Rick Friedman / Corbis via Getty Images)

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Noam Chomsky and the Fight Against Empire | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
byThe Nation Magazine

On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Daniel Bessner on a radical critic’s achievements and the limits of protest.

For nearly seven decades, Noam Chomsky has been the most important critic of American foreign policy. Daniel Besser, co-host of the Nation podcast American Prestige, recently reviewed for the magazine a new book authored by Chomsky and Nathan J. Robinson, The Myth of American Idealism. In his review, Daniel both extolled Chomsky’s monumental achievement and raised questions about the weakness of antiwar movements in challenging the terrible policies that Chomsky has so diligently analyzed.

Daniel and I talked about Chomsky’s legacy as well as the way the establishment has been able to success thwart popular resistance.

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For nearly seven decades, Noam Chomsky has been the most important critic of American foreign policy. Daniel Besser, co-host of the Nation podcast American Prestige, recently reviewed for the magazine a new book authored by Chomsky and Nathan J. Robinson, The Myth of American Idealism. In his review, Daniel both extolled Chomsky’s monumental achievement and raised questions about the weakness of antiwar movements in challenging the terrible policies that Chomsky has so diligently analyzed.Daniel and I talked about Chomsky’s legacy as well as the way the establishment has been able to success thwart popular resistance.

The Nation Podcasts

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.

Trump’s Global Culture War w/ Stephen Wertheim | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
byThe Nation Magazine

The Trump administration has released a new National Security Strategy that is a marked shift

not only from earlier administrations but also Trump’s first term in office. While the new policy

statement eschews the goal of global hegemony, it promotes culture war in Europe by

promising support of anti-immigration political parties, economic rivalry in Asia with China, and

a renewal of US military hegemony in the Western hemisphere. To survey this document and

Trump’s often contradictory foreign policy, I spoke to frequent guest of the show Stephen

Wertheim who is American Statecraft senior fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International

Peace.

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Jeet HeerTwitterJeet Heer is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation and host of the weekly Nation podcast, The Time of Monsters. He also pens the monthly column “Morbid Symptoms.” The author of In Love with Art: Francoise Mouly’s Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman (2013) and Sweet Lechery: Reviews, Essays and Profiles (2014), Heer has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The American Prospect, The GuardianThe New Republic, and The Boston Globe.


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