Public intellectuals are great. We should all be thinking of becoming one ourselves, like wot Michael Portillo is. Other public intellectuals, such as Richard Dawkins, Naomi Klein, Slavoj Zizek and Eamonn Holmes help to constuct our moral landscapes.
But Noam Chomsky is undoubtedly the greatest thinker of the modern age. His ground-breaking work, Manufacturing Consent, a romantic melodrama, set against the backdrop of a Yorkshire pie factory, is widely regarded as Chomsky's greatest intellectual achievement. Other important works include the imperishable The Cotton Runts, a sweeping epic of loss, hopelessness and futility, set against the backdrop of an England cricket tour.
