Beginning with the fundamental principle that the exercise of violence against civilian populations is terror, regardless of whether the perpetrator is an underground network of Muslim extremists or the most powerful state in the world, Chomsky, in stark and uncompromising terms, challenges the United States to apply to itself the moral standards it demands of others. Chomsky reviews the history of war crimes and delivers his now-famous analysis of the double-standards and hypocrisy of Western governments, and the role of the media and intellectuals. `Power and Terror’ is an uncompromising critique of American power. With clarity and forcefullness, he places terrorist acts in the context of American foreign intervention throughout the postwar decades — in Vietnam, Central America, the Middle East, and elsewhere. `Power and Terror’ also includes personal reflections by Chomsky on the sources of his optimism, and the connection, if any, between his work in linguistics and his political activism. He credits the dedicated, painstaking, often unacknowledged but brave participation of ordinary citizens with making the world a more civilized place now than it was decades ago. It is perhaps this optimism that sustains his life-long mission: to bring facts to the public in the faith that, armed with information, people will use that knowledge to demand peace, democracy, and social justice.