The epoch-making theories of linguist Noam Chomsky maintain that the human brain has an innate language faculty, and that part of this biological endowment is a universal grammar, a theory of principles common to all languages. Thus, all human languages and the ways in which children learn them are similar.

Introducing Chomsky traces Chomsky's understanding of the cognitive recognition involved in the use of language, and the technical apparatus needed to represent it. The book also describes Chomsky's radical critique of the institutions of power and the pathways of oppression, and his commitment to freedom and justice.