Chomsky is a terrible, terrible historian. He regularly presents things that are heavily debated as established fact. He doesn’t lie or even repeat blatant fa

Chomsky is a terrible, terrible historian. He regularly presents things that are heavily debated as established fact. He doesn’t lie or even repeat blatant falsehoods. He just misrepresents the level of certainty regarding historical events. In his recent essay Prospects for Survival, he talks about Stalin’s offer to unite East and West Germany as though it were a good faith offer. He equivocates with “we can’t be sure”, but then acts like it’s a reasonable proposition. While the absolute truth died with Stalin, there’s no evidence anyone in the Soviet Union or East Germany was prepared to surrender control.