Editing Noam Chomsky (section)

===Edward S. Herman and the Faurisson affair: 1976–1980===
{{See also|Cambodian genocide denial#Chomsky and Herman|Faurisson affair}}
[[File:Prof dr Noam Chomsky, Bestanddeelnr 929-4752 (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright|Chomsky in 1977]]
In the late 1970s and 1980s, Chomsky's linguistic publications expanded and clarified his earlier work, addressing his critics and updating his grammatical theory.{{sfn|Barsky|1997|p=175}} His political talks often generated considerable controversy, particularly when he criticized the Israeli government and military.{{sfn|Barsky|1997|pp=167, 170}} In the early 1970s Chomsky began collaborating with [[Edward S. Herman]], who had also published critiques of the U.S. war in Vietnam.{{sfn|Barsky|1997|p=157}} Together they wrote ''[[Counter-Revolutionary Violence: Bloodbaths in Fact & Propaganda]]'', a book that criticized U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia and the mainstream media's failure to cover it. Warner Modular published it in 1973, but [[Warner Communications|its parent company]] disapproved of the book's contents and ordered all copies destroyed.{{sfnm|1a1=Barsky|1y=1997|1pp=160–162|2a1=Sperlich|2y=2006|2p=86}}

While mainstream publishing options proved elusive, Chomsky found support from [[Michael Albert]]'s [[South End Press]], an activist-oriented publishing company.{{sfn|Sperlich|2006|p=85}} In 1979, South End published Chomsky and Herman's revised ''Counter-Revolutionary Violence'' as the two-volume ''[[The Political Economy of Human Rights]]'',{{sfnm|1a1=Barsky|1y=1997|1p=187|2a1=Sperlich|2y=2006|2p=86}} which compares U.S. media reactions to the [[Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia|Cambodian genocide]] and the [[Indonesian occupation of East Timor]]. It argues that because Indonesia was a U.S. ally, U.S. media ignored the East Timorese situation while focusing on events in Cambodia, a U.S. enemy.{{sfn|Barsky|1997|p=187}} Chomsky's response included two testimonials before the United Nations' [[Special Committee on Decolonization]], successful encouragement for American media to cover the occupation, and meetings with refugees in [[Lisbon]].{{sfn|Sperlich|2006|p=103}} Marxist academic [[Steven Lukes]] most prominently publicly accused Chomsky of betraying his anarchist ideals and acting as an apologist for Cambodian leader [[Pol Pot]].{{sfn|Barsky|2007|p=98}} Herman said that the controversy "imposed a serious personal cost" on Chomsky,{{sfn|Barsky|1997|pp=187–189}} who considered the personal criticism less important than the evidence that "mainstream intelligentsia suppressed or justified the crimes of their own states".{{sfn|Barsky|1997|p=190}}

Chomsky had long publicly criticized [[Nazism]], and [[totalitarianism]] more generally, but his commitment to freedom of speech led him to defend the right of French historian [[Robert Faurisson]] to advocate a position widely characterized as [[Holocaust denial]]. Without Chomsky's knowledge, his plea for Faurisson's freedom of speech was published as the preface to the latter's 1980 book {{lang|fr|Mémoire en défense contre ceux qui m'accusent de falsifier l'histoire}}.{{sfnm|1a1=Barsky|1y=1997|1pp=179–180|2a1=Sperlich|2y=2006|2p=61}} Chomsky was widely condemned for defending Faurisson,{{sfnm|1a1=Barsky|1y=1997|1p=185|2a1=Sperlich|2y=2006|2p=61}} and France's mainstream press accused Chomsky of being a Holocaust denier himself, refusing to publish his rebuttals to their accusations.{{sfn|Barsky|1997|p=184}} Critiquing Chomsky's position, sociologist [[Werner Cohn]] later published an analysis of the affair titled ''Partners in Hate: Noam Chomsky and the Holocaust Deniers''.{{sfn|Barsky|1997|p=78}} The Faurisson affair had a lasting, damaging effect on Chomsky's career,{{sfn|Barsky|1997|p=185}} especially in France.{{sfnm|Birnbaum|2010|Aeschimann|2010}}