McCarthyism, The Great American Red Scare: A Documentary History [Paperback]

Albert Fried (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195097017 | ISBN-13: 978-0195097016 | Publication Date: December 12, 1996

Drawing upon a rich selection of documents, this text provides a detailed account of McCarthyism, a period which spanned from the late 1940s to the mid 1960s. It discusses the turbulent years during which Americans were routinely persecuted because they were suspected of being insufficiently patriotic or too sympathetic to the Soviet Union. The persecution took various forms, from imprisonment to the purging and blacklisting of untold thousands. Fried demonstrates how the end result was to consign the American radical left to irrelevancy, helping to ensure that already established policies, both foreign and domestic, would remain unchallenged. Fried provides informative introductions and headnotes for each section, as well as a useful bibliography. Through speeches, executives orders, congressional hearings, court decisions, official reports, letters, memoirs, and essays, this text offers the most sweeping and comprehensive look at McCarthyism, highlighting the cruelty, poignancy, and absurdity of this extraordinary period of time. Documenting both the persecuted and the persecutors, this is the definitive reader and core text for courses on McCarthyism, and an ideal supplement for courses on American history and political science.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Albert Fried is at SUNY at Purchase.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (December 12, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195097017
• ISBN-13: 978-0195097016
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #79,606 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #85 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Photo Essays

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Witch-hunt., July 5, 2003

By 

Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: McCarthyism, The Great American Red Scare: A Documentary History (Paperback)

As Peter Dale Scott states in his excellent book 'Deep Politics', McCarthyism was one of the main scandals in the US in the twentieth century.
Therefore, this volume composed by Prof. Fried, with the most important documents about this phenomenon (laws, interrogations, judgments ...) is a most useful reminder of what really happened. Also, his analysis of the facts is objective and to the point.

Prof. Fried defines the red scare as 'a mass phenomenon that may have comprised a majority of the electorate, with one abiding passion, that Communism was the sum of human iniquity and that to destroy it all means were justified'. (p. 118)

Some of the villains (R. Reagan, R. Nixon, A. Schlesinger Jr., E. Kazan, L.J. Cobb) in this shameful episode of US politics, made brilliant careers afterwards.

The justification by those who accused colleagues and friends could be right (e. g. Kazan: The Communists automatically violated the daily practices of democracy), but it was a most inhuman behaviour.
As Lillian Hellman wrote: 'But to hurt innocent people whom I knew many years ago in order to save myself is, to me, inhuman and indecent and dishonorable. I cannot and will not cut my conscience'. (p.138)

The overwhelming majority of the accused dropped for good out of their profession. Only a few, like directors Jules Dassin and Joseph Losey, found work in Europe.

I must recommend the above mentioned book by Peter Dale Scott, who gives a brilliant analysis of MacCarthyism: who really pulled the strings behind the veil and why it was abruptly stopped.

A most necessary reminder of an unnecessary and unjustified witch-hunt.

11 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So true...., January 16, 2005

By 

Chris Macdonald Dennis (St. Paul, MN U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: McCarthyism, The Great American Red Scare: A Documentary History (Paperback)

This book shows what a dark time the 50s were for civil liberties and political dissent. Let us hope we are not going toward that again, although I fear we are.

15 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fried Doesn't include Venona Intercepts, February 13, 2005

By 

Fredrick P. Wilson "shinano01" (Flint, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: McCarthyism, The Great American Red Scare: A Documentary History (Paperback)

This is a valuable review of numerous documents from the era that is commonly referred to as "McCarthyism", and as a record of actual documented history, it is valuable. However, it was published one and one-half years after the release of the Venona intercepts between the Soviet KGB Secret Service and its American Citizens that were spies, frequently paid, for the Soviet Union and Stalin. Therefore, the opinions expressed, mostly liberal, regarding the documentation presentated in this book, are, at best, dated. At worst, it is a continuing disregard of actual events and the true history of that fascinating time period, when there were hundreds of American Traitors in the US Government.