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These texts emerge from the postulate that languages have no language-particular rules or grammatical constructions of the traditional sort, but rather universal principles and a finite array of options for application. They represent significant advances in the field. In 1988, Chomsky stated that contemporary insights into "empty categories and the principles that govern them and that determine the nature of mental representations and computations in general," "the principles of phrase structure, binding theory, and other subsystems of universal grammar," are allowing us "to see into the hidden nature of the mind . . . really for the first time in history." These discoveries were, he insisted, comparable "with the discovery of waves, particles, genes and so on and the principles that hold of them, in the physical sciences''; furthermore, "we are approaching a situation that is comparable with the physical sciences in the seventeenth-century, when the great scientific revolution took place . . . " (Language and Problems 91 ­ 92). And, in the introduction to The Minimalist Program, he continued along this trajectory, claiming that "it is, I think, of considerable importance that we can at least formulate such questions today, and even approach them in some areas with a degree of success. If recent thinking along these lines is anywhere near accurate, a rich and exciting future lies ahead for the study of language and related disciplines" (9).

Chomsky's political work continued to evolve. While he consistently maintained the principles he had adopted so many years before, he now broadened his scope to address a larger number of issues. He delved deeper into media research (Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media [1988], with Edward S. Herman; Necessary Illusions [1989], and explored other areas, such as Cold War, post-Cold War, and terrorist-style politics (Towards a New Cold War: Essays on the Current Crisis and How We Got There [1982]; Pirates and Emperors: International Terrorism and the Real World [1986]; The Culture of Terrorism [1988]; Terrorizing the Neighbourhood: American Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era [1991]; World Orders, Old and New [1994]; Powers and Prospects [1996]), Israel (The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians [1983]), Latin America (Turning the Tide: U.S. Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace [1985]), Vietnam (Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and U.S. Political Culture [1993]), and imperialism (Deterring Democracy [1991]; Year 501: The Conquest Continues [1993]). Two of the best anthologies of his work were also published during this period, Language and Politics (1988) and The Chomsky Reader (1987); two excellent introductions to his work were written by Carlos Otero (Radical Priorities [1981] and Language and Politics [1988]); and collections of interviews such as Chronicles of Dissent (1992) and Keeping the Rabble in Line: Interviews with David Barsamian (1994) gave the reader access to interviews on wide-ranging subjects.

Scanning this incomplete list of publications ­ produced during an era dominated by a virtual president named Ronald Reagan, an absurd arms race, the decline and dismantling of the Soviet Union, and superpower engagements with such world-menacing despots as Noriega, Hussein, Khaddafi, and Castro, as well as threats to the stability of the free world from Grenada, Nicaragua, and East Timor ­ it becomes evident that a synopsis of Chomsky's output over even a relatively short period would only amount to a scratch on the surface of an enormous body of work.



A better way to determine where Chomsky is standing at the present juncture, to communicate a sense of his current milieu, is to look at three issues in which he has become implicated. First, Chomsky has in recent times observed a growing cynicism in the American people, a conviction that the political system is manifestly biased against them and that real political power has eluded their grasp. Out of this cynicism they have, for example, voted against their own best interests (Chomsky cites a poll in which people were asked if they voted for Reagan; the majority responded "Yes," but when asked if they thought Reagan's policies would be beneficial to them they replied "No''). Second, Chomsky has noticed a related increase in the distance between the rulers and the ruled. This is the result of both the increased accumulation of power within a shrinking segment of the population, and the widely heralded "world market economy" (frequently described by Chomsky as a fraudulent label employed by the elite), which has been expanded thanks to the European Union, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and a new General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade treaty. Third, Chomsky has begun, in his political writings, to cite primary sources and media reports rather than the influential figures to whom he had once regularly turned. This phenomenon reflects the growth of popular movements and Chomsky's involvement in them. Also, Chomsky admits, "virtually no one shared my interest in anarchism (and Spanish anarchism) . . . and the deepening of my own understanding of the (left) libertarian tradition back to the Enlightenment and before was completely isolated from anyone I knew or know of" (31 Mar. 1995).