Noam Chomsky is a world-renowned linguist, scholar, and political analyst. Born on December 7, 1928 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Chomsky became politically conscious at a very young age, writing his first political article, on the fight against fascism in Spain, when he was only ten years old. His 1957 work Syntactic Structures revolutionized the field of linguistics, fundamentally changing the current understanding of language and mind.Chomsky joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1955, and in 1976 was appointed Institute Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. He has written and lectured extensively on linguistics, philosophy, international affairs, U.S. foreign policy, and other contemporary political issues. His essays have appeared in The New York Review of Books, The Nation, Z Magazine, CAQ, and numerous political and scholarly publications. Chomsky's groundbreaking work on Palestine and the Middle East, East Timor, the Gulf War, and the mass media have gained international attention.
As evidence of his broad appeal and importance, he was the subject of the award-winning 1993 film Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media and excerpts from his speeches have appeared on the b-side of a single by the band Bad Religion.