Necessary Illusions

When I started reading this, I was expecting it to not be all that interesting. “After all,” I told myself, “it seems to mostly be based on historical US intervention in places like Vietnam and Nicaragua. How relevant could that be to today?” Sadly, I was very solely mistaken. Chomsky explores, at great detail, how media in “free” Western countries often toe the line for government when it serves their interests, going to the extent of deceiving people when ‘necessary'. Sadly, most of this still seemed relevant, what with the current “war on terror” that the US is waging against many parts of the world.

What a letdown following Manufacturing Consent. This book is no more than a weak addendum to that masterpiece. Where the Herman-Chomsky opus has concise examples, clear argument, and engaging structure, Necessary Illusions has examples that go on too long without reaching a defined point, a stagnant and vague thesis of “media serves power”, and is mystifyingly structured into a short text followed by a series of plotless appendices. This book could be simply formulated as a comparison of the case studies of US media treatment of Nicaragua and Israel. That's all this book is. Instead, Chomsky flits between the two studies without rhyme or reason, alternating information about the case studies in nonsensical sequence.