Russell Baker - Praise and Criticism

Praise and Criticism

Neil Postman, in the preface to Conscientious Objections, describes Baker as "...like some fourth century citizen of Rome who is amused and intrigued by the Empire's collapse but who still cares enough to mock the stupidities that are hastening its end. He is, in my opinion, a precious national resource, and as long as he does not get his own television show, America will remain stronger than Russia." (1991, xii)

Noam Chomsky accused Baker of "genocide denial with a vengeance" after the latter praised the work of Edmund Morgan, who wrote: "In the limitless and unspoiled world stretching from tropical jungle to the frozen north, there may have been scarcely more than a million inhabitants." Chomsky notes that Morgan's figure of one million is "off by many tens of millions", meaning he and Baker are denying the genocide of many millions of indigenous Americans.

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