Edward S. Herman (1925-2017)


He died on November 11, 2017 at the age of 92. He was emeritus professor of finance at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He was the co-author with Noam Chomsky of that excellent book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988) that I think should be essential reading for anyone interested in politics and the media and which I have referred to many times on this blog. His Wikipedia page provides his biography.

Although less well famous than Chomsky, Herman was a prolific writer and analyst and sharp critic of the US media and foreign policy. He was a regular contributor to Z Magazine right up until his death where his passion for justice shone through in every sentence.

Here he is in an interview from five years ago deconstructing the concepts of ‘humanitarian intervention’ and ‘responsibility to protect’, both of which he argues are just covers for acts of imperialism and naked aggression by the US. You can see how much he cared about exposing wrongdoing at the age of 87. He never gave up the struggle.

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