' Decoding Chomsky is one of the most exciting scholarly books I have read in years. Only someone with Knight's extensive background in both linguistics and politics could have written it. It builds on and synthesizes earlier work on a topic Chomsky has always resisted: the relationship between his linguistic and his political work. Knight suggests that Chomsky's work played a key role in depoliticizing an academy that was seen as leaning too far to the left. It helps explain how one of the most vocal critics of US militarism can have worked at one of the most militarized universities in the US, and been the recipient of significant direct funding from the military. It also helps to explain why Chomsky's thinking can have been so remarkably influential. Knight's book forces readers to rethink key questions about politics and linguistics; it will be required reading for anyone at all interested in the history of intellectual and political thought since the 1950s.' - David Golumbia, author of The Cultural Logic of Computation.