Noam Chomsky

His father William fled the Russian Empire in 1913 to avoid conscription, worked Baltimore sweatshops and Hebrew elementary schools before he could afford college, and became a Hebrew scholar. Noam was born in Philadelphia on December 7, 1928 into a house where Hebrew was taught and Zionism was argued, and he went to Hebrew High School at Gratz College, where his father taught. Visiting an uncle in New York he worked through the anarchist bookstores. At ten he wrote an article about the fall of Barcelona and the crushing of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists. He paid for his own degree at Pennsylvania by teaching Hebrew, was bored enough to consider dropping out for a kibbutz, and was held by a linguist he met in a political circle in 1947, Zellig Harris.

He spent 1951 to 1955 in the Harvard Society of Fellows and took a doctorate on transformational grammar, which also exempted him from a draft due to begin that year. Roman Jakobson got him an assistant professorship at MIT the same year. Syntactic Structures followed in 1957, and his 1959 review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior did more than any other document to end behaviorism's claim on the mind. Tenure came in 1961. Then the second career: "The Responsibility of Intellectuals" in 1967 made him a public dissident. He withheld half his taxes, backed draft resisters, was arrested at an antiwar teach-in outside the Pentagon, co-founded RESIST, and landed on Nixon's list of political opponents. Manufacturing Consent, with Edward Herman, came in 1988. He has written more than 150 books and is among the most cited living authors.

He denounced American power from a laboratory inside an institution the Pentagon helped pay for. When MIT students moved to end weapons and counterinsurgency research on campus he was sympathetic, but argued the work should stay under the university's supervision. He thought about resigning during the Vietnam War and did not. His free-speech defense of the Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson was printed, without his knowledge, as the preface to Faurisson's 1980 book, and did lasting damage. Steven Lukes accused him of acting as an apologist for Pol Pot over what he and Herman wrote about Cambodia. And the Epstein documents released by the House Oversight Committee from November 2025 show he befriended Epstein after the 2008 conviction, advised him on handling coverage of the trafficking allegations, stayed in touch through 2019, and called him a highly valued friend.

He is 97 and nothing about the reputation is settled. He retired from MIT in 2002 and taught at Arizona from 2017 on a salary covered by donors. A massive stroke in June 2023 took his speech and his ability to walk. He was flown to São Paulo, discharged home in June 2024, and was still convalescing in Brazil as of late 2025. That same June the internet declared him dead and several outlets had to retract obituaries. In February 2026 his wife, Valeria Wasserman, called the Epstein friendship a grave mistake and apologized on his behalf. In linguistics his framework is argued with rather than abandoned. In politics the argument now has to be conducted alongside the emails.

Noam Chomsky's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

• Syntactic Structures book
  The book that remade the scientific study of language 1957
• A Review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior article
  The attack that broke behaviorism's hold on the study of mind 1959
• Aspects of the Theory of Syntax book
  The standard-theory statement of generative grammar 1965
• The Responsibility of Intellectuals article
  Published in the New York Review of Books and made him a public dissident 1967
• American Power and the New Mandarins book
  His first book of political essays 1969
• Manufacturing Consent book
  Written with Edward Herman 1988

• 1939 aged ~11 Writes his first article, at ten, on the fall of Barcelona
• 1947 aged ~19 Meets Zellig Harris in a political circle and turns to linguistics He had been close to leaving Pennsylvania for a kibbutz.
• 1955 aged ~27 Takes his doctorate and begins teaching at MIT The degree also exempted him from a draft due to start that year.
• 1957 aged ~29 Publishes Syntactic Structures
• 1959 aged ~31 Reviews Skinner's Verbal Behavior and helps end the behaviorist era
• 1967 aged ~39 The Responsibility of Intellectuals appears and he becomes a public dissident He was arrested at an antiwar teach-in outside the Pentagon and withheld half his taxes.
• 1988 aged ~60 Publishes Manufacturing Consent with Edward Herman
• June 2023 aged 94 Suffers a massive stroke and is flown to São Paulo He can no longer speak or walk. He was discharged home in June 2024.
• November 2025 aged 96 Released Epstein emails show a friendship that ran to 2019 His wife called it a grave mistake and apologized for him in February 2026.

• B. F. Skinner 1904–1990
  Developed operant conditioning and made behaviorism the dominant mid-century American psychology. demolished his account of language
• Richard Nixon 1913–1994
  37th President whose foreign policy achievements were overshadowed by the Watergate scandal. put him on the enemies list
• Howard Zinn 1922–2010
  Historian and Boston University professor whose A People's History of the United States reshaped historical narratives. the other great dissenting historian of the era
• I.F. Stone 1907–1989
  Investigative journalist whose self-published newsletter exposed government lies for nearly two decades. independent journalism on the same beat
• Steven Pinker b. 1954
  Cognitive psychologist and linguist whose books argue that reason and science have driven human progress. built on the linguistics, split on the politics
• John Dewey 1859–1952
  Philosopher and educational reformer whose progressive ideas shaped modern American pedagogy. the pragmatist tradition he grew up arguing with