Not since the last American troops left Vietnam have we faced such a sudden void in our foreign policy—not just of authority but of explanations for what has happened and what lies ahead. Few analysts are better equipped to address this moment than Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad, scholars and critics whose work spans generations and continents. Called “the most widely read voice on foreign policy on the planet” by the New York Times Book Review, Noam Chomsky teams up with celebrated scholar Vijay Prashad—who “helps uncover the brilliant worlds hidden beneath official history and the mainstream media” (Eduardo Galeano)—to get to the roots of this time of unprecedented danger and change. Chomsky and Prashad interrogate the key turning points in America’s downward spiral—from the disastrous Iraq war to the failed intervention in Libya to the descent into chaos in Afghanistan. As the final moments of American power in Afghanistan fade, this crucial book argues that we must not look away from the wreckage and that we need, above all, an unsentimental vision of the new world we must build together.