In 1965, after Chomsky had already been well-established, he published two completely different landmark books. American Power and the New Mandarins is a deeply well-thought-out and insightful criticism of US foreign policy in Vietnam and Aspects of the Theory of Syntax is by any measurement an absolutely beautiful, astounding work of genius. It has made Chomsky, in most people’s minds – not in mine but in most – the most important linguist of probably all time
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