World Orders Old and New
By Noam Chomsky

Chomsky is one of the leading intellects of our time. After reading him, I was never able to look upon America in the same way again. He painstakingly goes behind the mediocre reporting of established newspapers and television to show how America, from its inception, has oppressed its citizens as well as people beyond its borders. Nothing escapes his scrutiny, from relationships between the United States and South America or Eastern Europe, to the problems in the Middle East. For anyone who has felt something was missing from the reportage she reads or sees on the evening news, this is the book to read. As a writer, I need to understand the world in which I move. It may never enter my fiction, but it's certainly the springboard from which I create.