The Responsibility of Intellectuals: Reflections by Noam Chomsky and Others After 50 Years

'The Responsibility of Intellectuals' propelled Noam Chomsky onto the US political scene half a century ago. This book revisits the seminal work, and features six new essays written to celebrate and explore its relevance in today's world, including Chomsky's recollections of the background to the original publication, and extensive commentary.

About the Author :
Nicholas Allott is senior lecturer in English language at the University of Oslo and co-author of Chomsky: Ideas and Ideals. Chris Knight is a research fellow at UCL and author of Decoding Chomsky: Science and Revolutionary Politics. Neil Smith is emeritus professor of linguistics at UCL and co-author of Chomsky: Ideas and Ideals among many other books.

Review :
'... a rich collection ... and one of the most remarkable essays is ['The abdication of responsibility'] by Craig Murray.' Labour Briefing 'While the book does not have a conclusion telling readers what we can learn from all this it does close with Noam Chomsky saying 'an intellectual presupposes a certain amount of privilege. Privilege confers obligations and responsibility, automatically' (p. 119). Intellectuals and perhaps even academics should keep this in mind. These obligations and responsibilities should be directed toward ending suffering as defined by what the Latin-American ethics philosopher Enrique Dussel calls the community of victims (Klikauer, 2014). Ending suffering is the ethical and intellectual duty of those who call themselves intellectuals.' Australian Universities Review "Now 90 years old, Noam Chomsky remains one of the best-known intellectuals and critics of American foreign policy in the world. One of his first major interventions, from the time of the Vietnam War, was his celebrated essay "The Responsibility of Intellectuals". At least for those sympathetic to his politics, it remains a classic statement of the case for academics and others to speak truth to power and to resist the ever-present pressures and temptations of being co-opted. The essay formed the subject of a conference at UCL marking its 50th anniversary in 2017, at which activists and academics explored what we can still learn from it as well as where it needs rethinking. The results have now been published in a collection, edited by Nicholas Allott, Chris Knight and Neil Smith, The Responsibility of Intellectuals: Reflections by Noam Chomsky and Others after 50 Years..." Times Higher Education " 'The Responsibility of Intellectual' is a collection of essays subtitled 'Reflections by Noam Chomsky and others after 50 years'. Although there are similar themes running through the essays, they need to be read and analysed individually. Most of them express admiration for Chomsky's activism or political viewpoint, but each represents the individual author's work or thoughts." The Weekly Worker "The six essays in this book, complemented by Chomsky's own replies and commentary during a question-and-answer session held at a University College London conference in 2017, explore what has changed over the last half century and assess the role of the intellectual in our contemporary Orwellian world, where revealing truth has to contend with newspeak and fake news." The Morning Star