American Power and the New Mandarins
Noam Chomsky's 1969 case against the Vietnam War and the experts who ran it.
At a glance
Key ideas
The new mandarins, A "successful" policy, Self-serving ideology …
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- Chomsky's first political book sets out his opposition to US involvement in the Vietnam War.
- He argues that America's intellectual and technical class, the "new mandarins" in universities and government, bear major responsibility for the war.
- He warns against accepting that technocratic power is neutral or benign.
- Many chapters began as articles and lectures from the anti-war movement.
Why it matters
- It launched Chomsky's second career as a political critic and states his lasting argument about intellectuals and power.
Key facts
- Author
- Noam Chomsky1
- Written and published
- Largely written in 1968; published in 19691
- Publishers
- Pantheon Books (New York) and Pelican Books (UK), 1969; The New Press, 20021
- 2002 edition
- With a new foreword by Howard Zinn1
- Grew from
- His 1967 essay "The Responsibility of Intellectuals" and other political articles2
Key ideas
-
The new mandarins1
Experts who claim power from knowledge and technique may be more arrogant and less able to admit failure than the old elites.
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A "successful" policy1
US policy succeeded in destroying nationalist movements among the South Vietnamese peasantry.
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Self-serving ideology1
Any group with power and wealth will build an ideology justifying it as serving the general welfare.
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A war that could not be won1
He predicted the US would be unable to defeat the Viet Cong.
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