The Withdrawal

Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power

Noam Chomsky, Vijay Prashad,

Foreword by Angela Y. Davis

Paperback

978-93-92018-20-6

LeftWord Books, New Delhi, 2024

Language: English

140 pages

5.5 x 8.5 inches

INR 275.00

In stock

SKU

LWB1621

Two of our most celebrated intellectuals grapple with the uncertain aftermath of the American collapse in Afghanistan.

“Through the structure of a deeply engaging conversation between two of our most important contemporary public intellectuals, we are urged to defy the inattention of the media to the disastrous damage inflicted in Afghanistan on life, land, and resources in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal and the connections to the equally avoidable and unnecessary wars on Iraq and Libya.” — from the foreword by Angela Y. Davis

Not since the last American troops left Vietnam have we faced such a sudden vacuum in our foreign policy—not only of authority, but also of explanations of what happened, and what the future holds.

Few analysts are better poised to address this moment than Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad, intellectuals and critics whose work spans generations and continents. Called “the most widely read voice on foreign policy on the planet” by the New York Times Book Review, Noam Chomsky is the guiding light of dissidents around the world. In The Withdrawal, Chomsky joins with Vijay Prashad—who “helps to uncover the shining worlds hidden under official history and dominant media” (Eduardo Galeano)—to get at the roots of this unprecedented time of peril and change.

Chomsky and Prashad interrogate key inflection points in America’s downward spiral: from the disastrous Iraq War to the failed Libyan intervention to the descent into chaos in Afghanistan.

As the final moments of American power in Afghanistan fade from view, this crucial book argues that we must not take our eyes off the wreckage—and that we need, above all, an unsentimental view of the new world we must build together.

Angela Y. Davis

Angela Davis is Professor Emerita at the History of Consciousness Department, University of California, Santa Cruz. Over the last thirty years, she has been active in numerous organisations challenging prison-related repression. Her advocacy on behalf of political prisoners led to three capital charges, sixteen months in jail awaiting trial, and a highly publicised campaign then acquittal in 1972. She is the author of seven books, including Women, Race & Class and Are Prisons Obsolete?

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Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor (emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Laureate Professor of Linguistics and Agnese Nelms Haury Chair in the Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona. A world-renowned linguist and political activist, he is the author of numerous books, including On Language, Understanding Power (edited by Peter R. Mitchell and John Schoeffel), American Power and the New Mandarins, For Reasons of State, Problems of Knowledge and Freedom, Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship, Towards a New Cold War, The Essential Chomsky(edited by Anthony Arnove), On Anarchism, The Chomsky–Foucault Debate (with Michel Foucault). He lives in Tucson, Arizona.

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Vijay Prashad

Vijay Prashadis director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, editor at LeftWord Books, and chief correspondent for Globetrotter Independent Media Institute. He is the author of forty books, including Untouchable Freedom: A Social History of a Dalit Community, Washington Bullets, Red Star Over the Third World, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third
World and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South. The Darker Nations won the Muzaffar Ahmad Book Prize. He lives in Santiago, Chile.