Ebook: Taming the Rascal Multitude: Essays, Interviews, and Lectures 1997–2014

As Noam Chomsky writes about something—US foreign policy, corporate policies, an election, or a movement—he not only specifically recounts the facts of the topic but also exercises blisteringly relentless logic to discern the interconnections between the evidence and broader themes involved.

Taming the Rascal Multitude is a judicious selection of essays and interviews from Z Magazine from 1997 to 2014. In each, Chomsky takes up some question of the moment and situates what followed even without having known what would follow. They explicate what preceded the current era and provide a how-to for successfully comprehending social events and relations. They are a pleasure to read, much like the pleasure of watching a great athlete or performer, but they also edify. They educate.

Reading Chomsky is about understanding how society works, how people relate to society and social trends, and, beyond the specifics, how to approach events, relations, occurrences, and patterns in a way that reveals their inner meanings and their outer connections and implications. It is like reading the best you can get about topic after topic, and, more, it is like watching a master craftsperson in a discipline that ought to be all of ours understanding the world to change it.