In the interviews Chomsky offers his opinions on such topics as the occupation of Iraq, the doctrine of pre-emptive attack, and the threat to international peace posed by the U.S. drive for global domination, in which, according to Deirdre Fernand, writing in The Times, "He lambasts all forms of American colonisation.

In this interview conducted in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on March 22, 2003, Chomsky begins by stating that the 2003 invasion of Iraq demonstrates a new doctrine he defines as preventative war where the U.S. moves to destroy any perceived challenge to its domination and in order to create this norm Saddam Hussein was falsely portrayed to the American people as a threat to their existence.

In this interview conducted in Boulder, Colorado, on April 5, 2003, Chomsky begins by musing on the progress of co-ordinated propaganda efforts first used by the British government and later U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to gain the backing of the American public for joining the First World War, then by Edward Bernays and Walter Lippmann in the 1920s to turn the on-job control of Taylorism into the off-job control, and in the elitist policies of Harold Laswell in the 1930s that had their origins in the Madisonian Model and would re-appear in Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, before moving largely into the private sector with the abolition of U.S. President Ronald Reagan's Office of Public Diplomacy in the 1980s.

He sees Karl Rove as the inheritor of this legacy with the instigation of a campaign to instil fear in the American populace with false claims about Iraq and portray George W. Bush as their saviour, so that they will accept a domestic policy that goes against their own interests.

He postulates that there is a propensity for fear particular to U.S. culture, possibly related to the country's history, that makes the American people especially susceptible to this form of propaganda and that it is necessary for them to develop an attitude of critical examination in order to overcome this.

In this interview conducted in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on November 30, 2004, Chomsky begins by dismissing the false conflict between Wilsonian idealism and hard-headed realism, which has become standard story in scholarship and the media regarding U.S. foreign policy and goes on to compare the invasion of Iraq with the Vietnam War, both of which are said to have been mistakes undertaken with the best of intentions.

In this interview conducted in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on December 3, 2004, Chomsky begins by stating that his analysis work is largely the detailed routine of finding and decoding the internalised assumptions of the educated elite and highlights this indoctrinated bias with the example of the attack on Social Security, which, he claims, is intended to undermine solidarity and atomise the population so that they are easy to control.

In this interview conducted in Lexington, Massachusetts, on February 7, 2005, Chomsky begins by reminiscing about his early education in a Deweyite school and his relationship with his father, a Hebrew scholar, who first introduced him to Semitic linguistics.

David Swanson writing in Political Affairs Magazine commends Barsamian for consistently asking "penetrating and provocative questions", and states that this book is an "ideal place to start" for readers not familiar with Chomsky whilst those that are will still be surprised by his "analyses of recent events".

"[3] Laurence Phelan writing in The Independent also comments on this and goes on to state that, "These transcripts find [Chomsky] in a sprightly and sometimes even playful mood, able to draw upon a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of world affairs and history, making connections, alighting on unexpected topics of conversation and arguing with persuasive logic.