The Anti-Chomsky Reader is a 2004 anthology book about the linguist and social critic Noam Chomsky edited by Peter Collier and David Horowitz. Its contributors criticize Chomsky's political and linguistic writings, claiming that he cherry-picks facts to fit his theories.

Contents

The Anti-Chomsky Reader contains the following essays: The authors claim Chomsky suppresses evidence to suit his theories.

Criticism of The Propaganda Model

Eli Lehrer criticized the propaganda model theory on several points. According to Lehrer, the theory:

Reception

The conservative historian Keith Windschuttle, in a review in the conservative magazine New Criterion, states that "Collier, Horowitz, and their six other authors have produced a book that has long been needed. It provides a penetrating coverage of the disgraceful career of a disgraceful but very influential man, who has so far avoided a criticism as thoroughgoing as this." The author Anthony F. Greco criticized Collier and Horowitz for being biased and selective and not acknowledging any merit in Chomsky's writings. The English professor Mark Bauerlein, in a generally positive review in the libertarian magazine Reason, claims that "Collier and Horowitz understand well the manufactured reality of political fame, and to dismantle it requires not contrary vitriol or clever rejoinders but direct, fact-based assertions that undermine the authenticity of the image. To that end, the contributors follow a simple procedure: Quote actual statements by Chomsky and test them for evidence and logic. The best contributions to the volume add the effective and timely tactic of citing Chomsky's progressive virtues and revealing how smoothly he abandons them." In Commentary Magazine, which writes on Jewish issues, Arch Puddington called The Anti-Chomsky Reader “The most comprehensive critique of Chomsky that has yet appeared,” and that it “benefits from the political sophistication of its contributors, most of whom are familiar with the dynamics of radical politics and are not distracted by Chomsky's pretense to scholarly rigor and truth-seeking.” John Feffer accused Collier and Horowitz of blatant dishonesty and has stated that they wrote the book to attack Chomsky because their careers were failing after their popularity died out during the Clinton administration years. Feffer also added that they had to make a dishonest living creating fictitious allegations of liberal bias in academia. James Lannigan and Neil McLaughlin wrote that David Horowitz was a "crusader against radical professors", and aside from compiling The Anti-Chomsky Reader, he'd also included Chomsky in The 101 Most Dangerous Professors.