cies are heavily tilted in favour of its powerful elite – especially corporate giants. This came into sharp relief during the recent fiscal crisis that had conjured up the spectre of the Great Depression of 1929 following the Wall Street Crash. However, this time around, the financial and insurance corporate behemoths were bailed out at the expense of the common taxpayers’ hard earned money. Chomsky gives cogent arguments to prove that while the average profligacy of American corporate houses has increased the common American citizens’ incomes have actually reduced.

Chomsky, as usual, is extremely convincing in his arguments. But, what the book’s readers would find strange is that there are no examples from the Soviet Empire’s exploitation of its Central Asian Republics and the then East European communist states that were members of the Warsaw Pact. Similarly, the manner in which China has been successfully usurping its weaker neighbours’ tracts of land which are rich in mineral and/or water resources does not find even a mention here. One does not need great imagination to conclude that if the Soviet Union, or even China, had become sole superpower in a unipolar world it would not have behaved any differently from what the US “imperialists” have been behaving. Only, perhaps – just perhaps – the victims would have been different. Since Chomsky compares USA to the empires of yore he must be aware that as long as an empire kept the process of expansion and consolidation going it remained invincible. Whenever laxity set in the empire began to disintegrate. So, what the USA is doing is nothing unique. When its Presidents mouth homilies vis-à-vis democracy and civilization one must remember that every emperor was similarly self-righteous.

Of course, Chomsky’s trenchant critique of American duplicity is being condemned by the right wing intellectuals in Europe and America. But, it would be foolish, nay, dangerous to dismiss his critiques as a frustrated leftist’s ranting.

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