Red Fear

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The Age of Eisenhower

Author : William I. Hitchcock
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1451698437
Total Pages : 895 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (516 download)

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Book Synopsis The Age of Eisenhower by : William I. Hitchcock

Download or read book The Age of Eisenhower written by William I. Hitchcock and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-03-20 with total page 895 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times–bestselling biography: a “complete and powerful assessment” of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency (Booklist, starred review). Drawing on newly declassified documents and thousands of pages of unpublished material, The Age of Eisenhower tells the story of a masterful president guiding the nation through the great crises of the 1950s, from McCarthyism and the Korean War through civil rights turmoil and Cold War conflicts. This is a portrait of a skilled leader who, despite his conservative inclinations, found a middle path through the bitter partisanship of his era. At home, Eisenhower affirmed the central elements of the New Deal, such as Social Security; fought the demagoguery of Senator Joseph McCarthy; and advanced the agenda of civil rights for African-Americans. Abroad, he ended the Korean War and avoided a new quagmire in Vietnam. Yet he also charted a significant expansion of America’s missile technology and deployed a vast array of covert operations around the world to confront the challenge of communism. As he left office, he cautioned Americans to remain alert to the dangers of a powerful military-industrial complex that could threaten their liberties. Today, presidential historians rank Eisenhower fifth on the list of great presidents, and William Hitchcock’s “rich narrative” shows us why Ike’s stock has risen so high. He was a gifted leader, a decent man of humble origins who used his powers to advance the welfare of all Americans (The Wall Street Journal).

Red Fear

Author : Iqbal Chand Malhotra
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9389867592
Total Pages : 345 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (898 download)

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Book Synopsis Red Fear by : Iqbal Chand Malhotra

Download or read book Red Fear written by Iqbal Chand Malhotra and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-11-01 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What was the reason for the first real armed encounter between Indian and Chinese troops on Chinese soil in the town of Dinghai on Chusan Island in July 1840? Were the orders for the invasion of Aksai Chin issued by Mao from Moscow in December 1949, at Stalin's behest? Was the pluck and raw courage of Lt. Gen. Sagat Singh to hold Nathu La first in 1965 and then again in 1967 the basis for General K. Sundarji's bold moves at Sumdorong Chu in 1986 and 1987? Red Fear: The China Threat catalogues, evaluates and infers the consequences of the political and military confrontations between India and China from the 15th to the 21st century. Contrary to the glowing accounts in popular imagination of a congruence of values and interests between these two nations, the relationship has been confrontational and antagonistic at many levels throughout these last six centuries. The lessons of history are hard to learn. Nevertheless, China seems to have learnt them better than India. It bided its time well and positioned itself to humiliate and denigrate India whenever possible as retribution for the perceived harm India and Indians did to its society and economy during the infamous Chinese century of humiliation between 1839 to 1940. For India, today's post-Galwan situation is reminiscent of the challenge India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru faced in 1962 and the identical challenge India's 14th Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces in 2020. Vedic philosophy argues that time is cyclical, and not linear, and by this argument, the year 2020 completes a 60-year cycle that began in 1960. How Modi responds to this challenge will define India's relationship with China as well as its position in the world through the rest of the 21st century.

The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left

Author : Landon R.Y. Storrs
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691153965
Total Pages : 422 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left by : Landon R.Y. Storrs

Download or read book The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left written by Landon R.Y. Storrs and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Red Scare politics undermined the reform potential of the New Deal In the name of protecting Americans from Soviet espionage, the post-1945 Red Scare curtailed the reform agenda of the New Deal. The crisis of the Great Depression had brought into government a group of policy experts who argued that saving democracy required attacking economic and social inequalities. The influence of these men and women within the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, and their alliances with progressive social movements, elicited a powerful reaction from conservatives, who accused them of being subversives. Landon Storrs draws on newly declassified records of the federal employee loyalty program—created in response to claims that Communists were infiltrating the U.S. government—to reveal how disloyalty charges were used to silence these New Dealers and discredit their policies. Because loyalty investigators rarely distinguished between Communists and other leftists, many noncommunist leftists were forced to leave government or deny their political views. Storrs finds that loyalty defendants were more numerous at higher ranks of the civil service than previously thought, and that many were women, or men with accomplished leftist wives. Uncovering a forceful left-feminist presence in the New Deal, she also shows how opponents on the Right exploited popular hostility to powerful women and their supposedly effeminate spouses. The loyalty program not only destroyed many promising careers, it prohibited discussion of social democratic policy ideas in government circles, narrowing the scope of political discourse to this day. Through a gripping narrative based on remarkable new sources, Storrs demonstrates how the Second Red Scare repressed political debate and constrained U.S. policymaking in fields such as public assistance, national health insurance, labor and consumer protection, civil rights, and international aid.

A Time of Fear

Author : Albert Marrin
Publisher : Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN 13 : 0525644326
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (256 download)

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Book Synopsis A Time of Fear by : Albert Marrin

Download or read book A Time of Fear written by Albert Marrin and published by Knopf Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From National Book Award Finalist and Sibert Honor Author Albert Marrin, a timely examination of Red Scares in the United States, including the Rosenbergs, the Hollywood Ten and the McCarthy era. In twentieth century America, no power--and no threat--loomed larger than the communist superpower of the Soviet Union. America saw in the dreams of the Soviet Union the overthrow of the US government, and the end of democracy and freedom. Meanwhile, the Communist Party of the United States attempted to use deep economic and racial disparities in American culture to win over members and sympathizers. From the miscarriage of justice in the Scotsboro Boys case, to the tragedy of the Rosenbergs to the theatrics of the Hollywood Ten to the menace of the Joseph McCarthy and his war hearings, Albert Marrin examines a unique time in American history...and explores both how some Americans were lured by the ideals of communism without understanding its reality and how fear of communist infiltration at times caused us to undermine our most deeply held values. The questions he raises ask: What is worth fighting for? And what are you willing to sacrifice to keep it? Filled with black and white photographs throughout, this timely book from an award-author brings to life an important and dramatic era in American history with lessons that are deeply relevant today.

The Lavender Scare

Author : David K. Johnson
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226825736
Total Pages : 334 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (268 download)

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Book Synopsis The Lavender Scare by : David K. Johnson

Download or read book The Lavender Scare written by David K. Johnson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2023-03-22 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new edition of a classic work of history, revealing the anti-homosexual purges of midcentury Washington. In The Lavender Scare, David K. Johnson tells the frightening story of how, during the Cold War, homosexuals were considered as dangerous a threat to national security as Communists. Charges that the Roosevelt and Truman administrations were havens for homosexuals proved a potent political weapon, sparking a “Lavender Scare” more vehement and long-lasting than Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare. Drawing on declassified documents, years of research in the records of the National Archives and the FBI, and interviews with former civil servants, Johnson recreates the vibrant gay subculture that flourished in midcentury Washington and takes us inside the security interrogation rooms where anti-homosexual purges ruined the lives and careers of thousands of Americans. This enlarged edition of Johnson’s classic work of history—the winner of numerous awards and the basis for an acclaimed documentary broadcast on PBS—features a new epilogue, bringing the still-relevant story into the twenty-first century.

Red Scare in the Green Mountains

Author : Rick Winston
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781578690077
Total Pages : 186 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis Red Scare in the Green Mountains by : Rick Winston

Download or read book Red Scare in the Green Mountains written by Rick Winston and published by . This book was released on 2018-07-25 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What happened in Vermont when the anti-Communist fear known as the "Red Scare" swept the country? Rick Winston explores some forgotten history as we see how Vermont, a small, rural "rock-ribbed Republican" state with a historically libertarian streak, handled the hysteria of the McCarthy era. A timely book in the Trump era.

Red Scare

Author : Joanne Barker
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520972678
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (29 download)

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Book Synopsis Red Scare by : Joanne Barker

Download or read book Red Scare written by Joanne Barker and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2021-12-03 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the rhetoric of terrorism has been used against high-profile movements to justify the oppression and suppression of Indigenous activists. New Indigenous movements are gaining traction in North America: the Missing and Murdered Women and Idle No More movements in Canada, and the Native Lives Matter and NoDAPL movements in the United States. These do not represent new demands for social justice and treaty rights, which Indigenous groups have sought for centuries. But owing to the extraordinary visibility of contemporary activism, Indigenous people have been newly cast as terrorists—a designation that justifies severe measures of policing, exploitation, and violence. Red Scare investigates the intersectional scope of these four movements and the broader context of the treatment of Indigenous social justice movements as threats to neoliberal and imperialist social orders. In Red Scare, Joanne Barker shows how US and Canadian leaders leverage the fear-driven discourses of terrorism to allow for extreme responses to Indigenous activists, framing them as threats to social stability and national security. The alignment of Indigenous movements with broader struggles against sexual, police, and environmental violence puts them at the forefront of new intersectional solidarities in prominent ways. The activist-as-terrorist framing is cropping up everywhere, but the historical and political complexities of Indigenous movements and state responses are unique. Indigenous criticisms of state policy, resource extraction and contamination, intense surveillance, and neoliberal values are met with outsized and shocking measures of militarized policing, environmental harm, and sexual violence. Red Scare provides students and readers with a concise and thorough survey of these movements and their links to broader organizing; the common threads of historical violence against Indigenous people; and the relevant alternatives we can find in Indigenous forms of governance and relationality.

Red Scare

Author : Robert K. Murray
Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
ISBN 13 : 0816658331
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (166 download)

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Book Synopsis Red Scare by : Robert K. Murray

Download or read book Red Scare written by Robert K. Murray and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 1955-01-01 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Red Scare was first published in 1955. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Few periods in American history have been so dramatic, so fraught with mystery, or so bristling with fear and hysteria as were the days of the great Red Scare that followed World War I. For sheer excitement, it would be difficult to find a more absorbing tale than the one told here. The famous Palmer raids of that era are still remembered as one of the most fantastic miscarriages of justice ever perpetrated upon the nation. The violent labor strife still makes those who lived through it shudder as they recall the Seattle general strike and Boston police strike, the great coal and steel strikes, and the bomb plots, shootings, and riots that accompanied these conflicts. But, exciting as the story may be, it has far greater significance than merely that of a lively tale. For, just as American was swept by a wave of unreasoning fear and was swayed by sensational propaganda in those days, so are we being tormented by similar tensions in the present climate of the cold war. The objective analysis of the great Red Scare which Mr. Murray provides should go a long way toward helping us to avert some of the tragic consequences that the nation suffered a generation ago before hysteria and fear had finally run their course. The author traces the roots of the phenomenon, relates the outstanding events of the Scare, and evaluates the significant effects of the hysteria upon subsequent American life.

McCarthyism and the Red Scare

Author : Heather C. Hudak
Publisher : Uncovering the Past
ISBN 13 : 9780778739395
Total Pages : 48 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (393 download)

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Book Synopsis McCarthyism and the Red Scare by : Heather C. Hudak

Download or read book McCarthyism and the Red Scare written by Heather C. Hudak and published by Uncovering the Past. This book was released on 2017-08-31 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Politically and socially, the decade from 1947 to 1956 marked an era of repression and fear. McCarthyism was a practice named for the blustery U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy. Known for his reckless and unsubstantiated accusations, he led a campaign to root out real and imagined subversives in American society. Packed with enlightening primary and secondary source material, McCarthyism and the Red Scare examines topical issues to help readers think critically about such concepts as freedom, Constitutional rights, blacklisting, and personal and state ideology.

Green Is the New Red

Author : Will Potter
Publisher : City Lights Publishers
ISBN 13 : 0872865525
Total Pages : 285 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (728 download)

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Book Synopsis Green Is the New Red by : Will Potter

Download or read book Green Is the New Red written by Will Potter and published by City Lights Publishers. This book was released on 2011-04-12 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a time when everyone is going green, most people are unaware that the FBI is using anti-terrorism resources to target environmentalists and animal rights activists. The courts are being used to push conventional boundaries of what constitutes "terrorism" and to hit nonviolent activists with disproportionate sentences. Some have faced terrorism charges for simply chalking slogans on the sidewalk. Like the Red Scare, this "Green Scare" is about fear and intimidation, using a word—"eco-terrorist"—to push a political agenda, instill fear and silence dissent. The animal rights and environmental movements directly threaten corporate profits every time activists encourage people to go vegan, to stop driving, to consume fewer resources and live simply. Their boycotts are damaging, and corporations and the politicians who represent them know it. In many ways, the Green Scare, like the Red Scare, can be seen as a culture war, a war of values. Will Potter outlines the political, legal, extra-legal and public relations strategies that are being used to threaten even acts of nonviolent civil disobedience with the label of "terrorism." Here is a guided tour into the world of radical activism that introduces the real people behind the headlines and tells the story of how everyday people are being prevented from speaking up for what they believe in. Potter (a contributor to The Next Eco-Warriors) warns that the U.S. government is using post-9/11 anti-terrorism resources to target environmentalists and animal right activists (in some cases for doing nothing but speaking up) . . . Potter warns of the crumbling of "the legal wall separating 'terrorist' from 'dissident' or 'undesirable,'" and concludes his account with a call to action and a decry of the injustice that results in the "terrorist" label being put on those who threaten American corporate interests. Alarming."—Publishers Weekly "In this hard-hitting debut, journalist Potter likens the Justice Department targeting of environmentalists today to McCarthyism in the 1950s . . . A shocking exposé of judicial overreach."—Kirkus Reviews (Starred review) Will Potter is an award-winning reporter who has written for publications including the Chicago Tribune, the Dallas Morning News and Legal Affairs, and has testified before the U.S. Congress about his reporting. He is the creator of www.GreenIsTheNewRed.com, where he blogs about the Green Scare.

Black Struggle, Red Scare

Author : Jeff R Woods
Publisher : LSU Press
ISBN 13 : 9780807129265
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (292 download)

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Book Synopsis Black Struggle, Red Scare by : Jeff R Woods

Download or read book Black Struggle, Red Scare written by Jeff R Woods and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2003-10-31 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the height of the cold war, southern segregationists exploited the reigning mood of anxiety by linking the civil rights movement to an international Communist conspiracy. Jeff Woods tells a gripping story of fervent crusaders for racial equality swept into the maelstrom of the South's siege mentality, of crafty political opportunists who played upon white southerners' very real fear of Communists, and of a people who saw lurking enemies and detected red propaganda everywhere. In their strange double identity as both defiant Confederate flag-wavers fiercely protecting regional sovereignty and as American superpatriots, many southerners stood ready to defend against subversives be they red or black. Concentrating on the phenomenon at its most intense period, Woods makes vivid the fearful synergy that developed between racist forces and the anti-Communist cause, reveals the often illegal means used to wash the movement red, and documents the gross waste of public funds in pursuing an almost nonexistent threat. Though ultimately unsuccessful in convincing Americans outside of Dixie that the civil rights protests were controlled by Moscow, the southern red scare forced movement activists to distance themselves from the Marxist elements in their midst -- thereby gaining the sympathy of the American people while losing the support of some of their most passionate antiracist campaigners. A product of vast archival research and the latest literature on this increasingly popular subject, this is the first book to consider the southern red scare as a unique regional phenomenon rather than an offshoot of McCarthyism or massive resistance. Addressing the fundamental struggle of Americans to balance liberty and security in an atmosphere of racial prejudice and ideological conflict, it will be equally compelling for students of civil rights, southern history, the cold war, and American anti-Communism.

Red Dynamite

Author : Carl R. Weinberg
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501759310
Total Pages : 444 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis Red Dynamite by : Carl R. Weinberg

Download or read book Red Dynamite written by Carl R. Weinberg and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-15 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Red Dynamite, Carl R. Weinberg argues that creationism's tenacious hold on American public life depended on culture-war politics inextricably embedded in religion. Many Christian conservatives were convinced that evolutionary thought promoted immoral and even bestial social, sexual, and political behavior. The "fruits" of subscribing to Darwinism were, in their minds, a dangerous rearrangement of God-given standards and the unsettling of traditional hierarchies of power. Despite claiming to focus exclusively on science and religion, creationists were practicing politics. Their anticommunist campaign, often infused with conspiracy theory, gained power from the fact that the Marxist founders, the early Bolshevik leaders, and their American allies were staunch evolutionists. Using the Scopes "Monkey" Trial as a starting point, Red Dynamite traces the politically explosive union of Darwinism and communism over the next century. Across those years, social evolution was the primary target of creationists, and their "ideas have consequences" strategy instilled fear that shaped the contours of America's culture wars. By taking the anticommunist arguments of creationists seriously, Weinberg reveals a neglected dimension of antievolutionism and illuminates a source of the creationist movement's continuing strength. Thanks to generous funding from Indiana University and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.

Red Scare

Author : Don E. Carleton
Publisher : University of Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 0292758553
Total Pages : 419 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (927 download)

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Book Synopsis Red Scare by : Don E. Carleton

Download or read book Red Scare written by Don E. Carleton and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2014-02-15 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Texas State Historical Association Coral Horton Tullis Memorial Prize for Best Book on Texas History, this authoritative study of red-baiting in Texas reveals that what began as a coalition against communism became a fierce power struggle between conservative and liberal politics.

Red Scare: Communists in America

Author : Budd Bailey
Publisher : Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC
ISBN 13 : 1502623250
Total Pages : 130 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (26 download)

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Book Synopsis Red Scare: Communists in America by : Budd Bailey

Download or read book Red Scare: Communists in America written by Budd Bailey and published by Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC. This book was released on 2016-12-15 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first half of the twentieth century was a murderous period as political ideologies grew into wars that killed tens of millions of people. Fear of Communism sparked a hysteria in the United States that led to two red scares and the rise and fall of McCarthyism. This book looks at the events that created credible concerns about Communism and those that allowed baseless allegations to ruin the lives of innocent Americans. A timeline plots the history of anti-Communist feeling in the United States.

Nightmare in Red

Author : Richard M. Fried
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780199763191
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (631 download)

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Book Synopsis Nightmare in Red by : Richard M. Fried

Download or read book Nightmare in Red written by Richard M. Fried and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1991-03-28 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to newspaper headlines and television pundits, the cold war ended many months ago; the age of Big Two confrontation is over. But forty years ago, Americans were experiencing the beginnings of another era--of the fevered anti-communism that came to be known as McCarthyism. During this period, the Cincinnati Reds felt compelled to rename themselves briefly the "Redlegs" to avoid confusion with the other reds, and one citizen in Indiana campaigned to have The Adventures of Robin Hood removed from library shelves because the story's subversive message encouraged robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. These developments grew out of a far-reaching anxiety over communism that characterized the McCarthy Era. Richard Fried's Nightmare in Red offers a riveting and comprehensive account of this crucial time. He traces the second Red Scare's antecedents back to the 1930s, and presents an engaging narrative about the many different people who became involved in the drama of the anti-communist fervor, from the New Deal era and World War II, through the early years of the cold war, to the peak of McCarthyism, and beyond McCarthy's censure to the decline of the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the 1960s. Along the way, we meet the familiar figures of the period--Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower, the young Richard Nixon, and, of course, the Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. But more importantly, Fried reveals the wholesale effect of McCarthyism on the lives of thousands of ordinary people, from teachers and lawyers to college students, factory workers, and janitors. Together with coverage of such famous incidents as the ordeal of the Hollywood Ten (which led to the entertainment world's notorious blacklist) and the Alger Hiss case, Fried also portrays a wealth of little-known but telling episodes involving victims and victimizers of anti-communist politics at the state and local levels. Providing the most complete history of the rise and fall of the phenomenon known as McCarthyism, Nightmare in Red shows that it involved far more than just Joe McCarthy.

The Cold War at Home

Author : Philip Jenkins
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cold War at Home by : Philip Jenkins

Download or read book The Cold War at Home written by Philip Jenkins and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cold War at Home: The Red Scare in Pennsylvania, 1945-1960

The Fear Within

Author : Scott Martelle
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
ISBN 13 : 0813550920
Total Pages : 317 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (135 download)

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Book Synopsis The Fear Within by : Scott Martelle

Download or read book The Fear Within written by Scott Martelle and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2011-05-12 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sixty years ago political divisions in the United States ran even deeper than today's name-calling showdowns between the left and right. Back then, to call someone a communist was to threaten that person's career, family, freedom, and, sometimes, life itself. Hysteria about the "red menace" mushroomed as the Soviet Union tightened its grip on Eastern Europe, Mao Zedong rose to power in China, and the atomic arms race accelerated. Spy scandals fanned the flames, and headlines warned of sleeper cells in the nation's midst--just as it does today with the "War on Terror." In his new book, The Fear Within, Scott Martelle takes dramatic aim at one pivotal moment of that era. On the afternoon of July 20, 1948, FBI agents began rounding up twelve men in New York City, Chicago, and Detroit whom the U.S. government believed posed a grave threat to the nation--the leadership of the Communist Party-USA. After a series of delays, eleven of the twelve "top Reds" went on trial in Manhattan's Foley Square in January 1949. The proceedings captivated the nation, but the trial quickly dissolved into farce. The eleven defendants were charged under the 1940 Smith Act with conspiring to teach the necessity of overthrowing the U.S. government based on their roles as party leaders and their distribution of books and pamphlets. In essence, they were on trial for their libraries and political beliefs, not for overt acts threatening national security. Despite the clear conflict with the First Amendment, the men were convicted and their appeals denied by the U.S. Supreme Court in a decision that gave the green light to federal persecution of Communist Party leaders--a decision the court effectively reversed six years later. But by then, the damage was done. So rancorous was the trial the presiding judge sentenced the defense attorneys to prison terms, too, chilling future defendants' access to qualified counsel. Martelle's story is a compelling look at how American society, both general and political, reacts to stress and, incongruously, clamps down in times of crisis on the very beliefs it holds dear: the freedoms of speech and political belief. At different points in our history, the executive branch, Congress, and the courts have subtly or more drastically eroded a pillar of American society for the politics of the moment. It is not surprising, then, that The Fear Within takes on added resonance in today's environment of suspicion and the decline of civil rights under the U.S. Patriot Act.