Many Are the Crimes [Paperback]

Ellen Schrecker (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0691048703 | ISBN-13: 978-0691048703 | Publication Date: August 9, 1999 | Edition: Pbk. Ed

The McCarthy era was a bad time for freedom in America. Encompassing far more than the brief career of Senator Joseph McCarthy, it was the most widespread episode of political repression in the history of the United States. In the name of National Security, most Americans--liberal and conservative alike--supported the anti-Communist crusade that ruined so many careers, marriages, and even lives. Now Ellen Schrecker gives us the first complete post-Cold War account of McCarthyism. Many Are the Crimes is a frightening history of an era that still resonates with us today.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Ellen Schrecker's history of the American anticommunist movement provides a much-needed objective perspective on one of the most troubling periods in twentieth-century politics. While she refuses to excuse the flaws of the American Communist party or its individual members and leaders, she is also bluntly honest about the systematic persecution they experienced at the hands of conservatives--and more than a few liberals.

Schrecker reaches back in history to examine the roots of McCarthyism in the activity of Communists in the 1930s, as well as the response to that activity; not nearly enough people today recall that the House Committee on Un-American Activities, the forerunner to Sen. Joseph McCarthy's Army hearings, received its mandate back in 1938. She reveals the dishonest practices of McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, and other professional anticommunists, and how the media often played--wittingly or unwittingly--right into their hands. One Washington-based journalist of the time would later say, "McCarthy was a dream story. I wasn't off page one for four years."

But Schrecker commands attention most when she writes of the effects of the anticommunist movement on men and women like union activist Clinton Jencks, one of the first men to be prosecuted under the Taft-Hartley Act, and of its stifling effect of leftist politics, particularly within the civil rights movement. The longterm consequences of McCarthyism, especially its proof of the ease with which a democratic government can adopt methods of political repression, are felt in America to this day. Many Are the Crimes is not only excellent history, but a powerful cautionary tale that should be required reading for any participant in modern politics. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Why did so many Americans collaborate with the domestic political repression of the late 1940s and 1950s, asks Schrecker (The Age of McCarthyism, St. Martin's, 1994), who argues that McCarthyism was far more than the antics of Wisconsin's Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy (1908-57). Schrecker exposes several McCarthyisms, identifying separate brands with separate agendas and ways of operating whose shared consensus on communism mediated their collaboration. Probing the many corners where McCarthyism prowled, she fingers a set of professional anti-Communists who deftly maneuvered federal officials under the guise of patriotism to adopt the indiscriminate crusade that treated dissent as disloyalty. Her focus is sharp and sweeping and her sources broad, ranging from the FBI, HUAC, NSA, and the KGB to the personal papers of various individuals. Schrecker's deft reconstruction of the longest wave of political repression in our history is recommended for all collections on U.S. history and politics.?Thomas Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 608 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press; Pbk. Ed edition (August 9, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691048703
• ISBN-13: 978-0691048703
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #134,086 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ellen Schrecker is a professor of history at Yeshiva University who has written extensively about the Cold War red scare. Among her books are No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities, The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents, Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America, and Cold War Triumphalism: Exposing the Misuse of History After the Fall of Communism. Schrecker is the former editor of the American Association of University Professors' magazine, Academe. She lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Authoritative Review Of Evidence Concerning McCarthyism!, July 17, 2003

By 

Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (Hardcover)

Given the recent spate of controversial conservative tomes claiming Joe McCarthy had been widely vilified and misunderstood, the act of finding this terrific book by former Harvard professor Ellen Schrecker at the Toadstool Bookstore in nearby Peterborough was an incredible coincidence. I was looking for an authoritative source of objective and dispassionate history of the McCarthy era that would comprehensively review the evidence and aid me in determining the relative merit of the conservative claims that Tail Gunner Joe had been right about the "commie menace" all along. I was fortunate indeed, for Professor Schrecker's carefully researched and scrupulously documented work offers the interested reader with an absorbing plethora of substantiated and objective information regarding what has to be considered one of the most inflammatory and controversial periods in 20th century American history.

Schrecker takes great pains at fairly and carefully detailing the specifics of the events transpiring in the rise of McCarthyism and its effects in the society, which it literally turned upside down. And while the author meticulously avoids becoming an apologist for the American Communist Party, carefully describing the rather sordid and troubling aspects of their political activities, she also shows how unfairly they were treated at the hands of McCarthy and the congregated conservative and liberal cabal that rose in the midst of the great Red Scare. Details regarding the degree to which individual communists were systematically persecuted are carefully documented and are far from representing mere anecdotal reports.

Moreover, she gives the reader a consummate history of the rise of McCarthyism, finding its origins in the communist movement, as it was struggling toward its greatest success amidst the misery and despair of the 1930s Depression. She also gives us some key insights into the inner mechanics of how the House Committee on Un-American Activities, also referred to as HUAC, laid the groundwork for the later hearings in the Senate by Joe McCarthy. She draws a convincing and quite detailed road map as to how the activities by parties to the search for communists within the government, including such desperate and disconnected entities as J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, members of HUAC, and Joe McCarthy and his staff, independently used extra-legal means to pursue and harass innocent ordinary people who they found inconveniently laying in the path of their investigations.

Also extensively examined and criticized is the media, especially the print form by way of newspapers and magazines, so hungry for a never-ending news story that they consistently covered it on page one, providing the "legs" to the continuing story about the hunt for communists, and provided HUAC, McCarthy, and others with the public support they needed to persevere in their efforts. Yet it was in the damage that McCarthyism did both to innocent victims like union activists and other liberal politicians that Schrecker provides the most damning evidence for.

Conservatives cynically employed the Taft-Hartley Act and other suffocating political methods both to stifle opposition, on the one hand, and to effectively disarm liberal activism in general. According to Professor Schrecker, this had a devastating effect on the civil rights movement, which Hoover characterized as communist-inspired. Indeed, he continued to pursue activists like martin Luther King for decades, until King's death finally put a close to the surveillance.

Perhaps the most chilling conclusions one derives from the book are her observations regarding how damaging the McCarthy era was in terms of its chilling effect in inhibiting free and open debate by ordinary citizens, and in the way it so aptly demonstrated the remarkable ease with which the machinery of government can subvert and repress its citizens through the employment of political propaganda and cynical emotional manipulation. This is a wonderfully written book, and one that is quite thought provoking. Enjoy!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WOW! 38 Ethnic Planners for Lifelong Holidays & Celebrations, September 16, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: For Every Season: The Complete Guide to African American Celebrations Traditional to Contemporary (Hardcover)

At last, a book that surpasses information on the joys of Kwanzaa and Black History Month and shows us how to incorporate our heritage into every celebration and holiday throughout life--all year long. My favorite planners--the Mamato Baby Shower, ethnic birthday parties, cultural weddings, adolescent rites-of-passage, and family reunions. The best part: it's a feel-good book with cultural love flowing from every page.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I thought that the book was extremely creative ans exciting., April 28, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: For Every Season: The Complete Guide to African American Celebrations Traditional to Contemporary (Hardcover)

I thought that the book has some really good ideas to spice up tradional celebrations. It was also interesting to know the history of the celebrations.