Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Priorities and prospects -- 2. Imperial grand strategy -- 3. The new era of enlightenment -- 4. Dangerous times -- 5. The Iraq connection -- 6. Dilemmas of dominance -- 7. Cauldron of animosities -- 8. Terrorism and justice : some useful truisms -- 9. A passing nightmare? -- Notes -- Index.

In this book Noam Chomsky offers an analysis of America's pursuit of total domination and the catastrophic consequences that follow. The United States is in the process of staking out not just the globe but the last unarmed spot in our neighborhood-the heavens-as a militarized sphere of influence. Our earth and its skies are, for the Bush administration, the final frontiers of imperial control. In Hegemony or survival, Noam Chomsky investigates how we came to this moment, what kind of peril we find ourselves in, and why our rulers are willing to jeopardize the future of our species. Chomsky dissects America's quest for global supremacy, tracking the U.S. government's aggressive pursuit of policies intended to achieve "full spectrum dominance" at any cost. He lays out how the various strands of policy-the militarization of space, the ballistic-missile defense program, unilateralism, the dismantling of international agreements, and the response to the Iraqi crisis-cohere in a drive for hegemony that ultimately threatens our survival. In our era, he argues, empire is a recipe for an earthly wasteland.