Naming Names [Paperback]

Victor S. Navasky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 30, 2003

With a New Afterword by the Author

“An astonishing work concerning personal honor and dishonor, shame and shamelessness. A book of stunning insights and suspense.” —Studs Terkel

Half a century later, the investigation of Hollywood radicals by the House Committee on Un-American Activities still haunts the public conscience. Naming Names, reissued here with a new afterword by the author, is the definitive account of the hearings, a National Book Award winner widely hailed as a classic. Victor S. Navasky adroitly dissects the motivations for the investigation and offers a poignant analysis of its consequences. Focusing on the movie-studio workers who avoided blacklists only by naming names at the hearings, he explores the terrifying dilemmas of those who informed and the tragedies of those who were informed on. Drawing on interviews with more than 150 people called to testify—among them Elia Kazan, Ring Lardner Jr., and Arthur Miller—Naming Names presents a compelling portrait of how the blacklists operated with such chilling efficiency.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The moral issues raised by the Hollywood blacklist remain fearfully complex, and Victor Navasky confronts them with almost exquisite precision.” —The New York Times

“Navasky has done a splendid job bringing this enormous mass of facts to coherence and meaning, judging its ethical import so rigorously and fairly. Naming Names is must reading.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review

From the Inside Flap

Winner of the National Book Award

"The moral issues raised by the Hollywood blacklist remain fearfully complex, and Victor Navasky confronts them with almost exquisite precision."
—The New York Times

"Navasky has done a splendid job bringing this enormous mass of facts to coherence and meaning, judging its ethical import so rigorously and fairly. Naming Names is must reading."
—Los Angeles Times Book Review

"His achievement is unarguable . . . [Navasky] establishes himself as that rare historian who can, like a novelist, illuminate the boundaries where power and conscience meet."
—Time

"The sort of book that ought to be required reading in the journalism classrooms of the nation as an example of how a writer can simultaneously convey a tough-minded point of view and be scrupulously fair."
—New York Daily News

"Navasky has written an important book about the McCarthy era . . . What makes [his] book striking is its fairness."
—The New York Times Book Review

"Remarkable . . . Navasky appears in these pages as a compassionate, if uncompromising, man . . . Thoughtful, instructive, and courageous."
—Newsweek

"One of the indispensable books not only for understanding a critical era in Hollywood and in American political life, but for coming to grips with the whole subject of American films and the role they have played in twentieth-century American culture."
—American Film

"Navasky has managed to function brilliantly as lawyer, historian, and psychologist all at once. Naming Names is a miracle of vividly responsible scholarship. At last I have a solid understanding of why so many important people behaved the way they did."
—Kurt Vonnegut

"I had anticipated the astoundingly comprehensive research; and need make only passing reference to the real voices—anguished, courageous, bitter, self-serving, defiant, pitiful, or burned—that sing through these pages. To me the greatness of this book has to do with the scrupulously patient, compassionate, but unerring moral analysis undertaken by the author like some sort of Virgil picking his way through a modern Hell. This isn’t a work of gossip, nor merely a cultural history, although it will be read as such: to me it is a text in moral instruction, a lesson in the enormous social consequences of private failures of spirit . . . Everyone will have to read Naming Names and take a position on it."
—E. L. Doctorow

"The first treatment of the subject I have seen which understands both the ambiguities and the political and ideological history that made that time such an ugly one in Hollywood."
—Frank Mankiewicz

"A great investigative reporter recreates one of the saddest eras of American life in all its complexities and drama. Naming Names is not so much a story of symbols or causes as of tormented human beings."
—Tom Wicker

"I read Naming Names with fascinated stupefaction. It is a unique, valuable, and dramatic description of a society without defenses against the destruction of its own best values. I hope everyone with even half a care for justice, civil rights, or simple individual eccentricity reading Naming Names."
—Nicholas von Hoffman

"The most intense moral argument that I, at least, have seen brought to bear in a very long time . . . Despite being addressed to the issues of the 1950s, it is current today . . . Navasky has given us a portrait of human beings under pressure which, in its fullness, is as lifelike as any Hollywood has ever given us. Anyone who thinks political choices are necessarily simple should read Naming Names."
—Mother Jones

"A landmark book . . . A stunning essay on the nature of understanding betrayal and the problem of forgiveness . . . Naming Names is both a wrenching book and one that counts."
—Village Voice

"Absolutely first-rate reporting, unsettling human drama, and shrewd meditation on political morality."
—Newsday

"Offers a timely opportunity to examine how the domestic cold war determined the way we live now . . . The issues that Navasky raises in this meticulously researched, scrupulously fair, brilliantly argued book are part of America’s unfinished business."
—Soho News

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Hill and Wang; Revised edition (April 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809001837
• ISBN-13: 978-0809001835
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #424,030 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars exploration into one of our most difficult periods, May 5, 2005

By 

Robert J. Crawford (Balmette Talloires, France) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Naming Names (Paperback)

When I bought this, I was uncertain that I could trust the perspective of the author: as publisher of The Nation (which I have written for) he is certifiably of the "left". I feared that he would take an obvious side, and hammer it into the ground.

What I found instead was an absolutely and scrupulously fair interpretation of what happened in the McCarthy era and why so many good and talented people betrayed their erstwhile friends. Navasky approaches it as the worst kind of personal moral dilemma: how can you save your career and not betray your deepest personal (and sometimes still political) allegiances.

The cast of characters comes predominently from the truly first rate, for example Jerome Robbins or Elia Kazan. Navassky shows how the struggled with their decision to name names, often convincing themselves that they had to do it to be an ethical person and good american, and then - to his great credit - he explores the shattering psychological repercussions that ensued. These actors in the drama are very human and caught in a dilemma so terrible that I pray I never will face a similar choice. Rather than seek a few weak bad guys, it is an indictment of an entire political system and policial era. Even if you are not convinced by his argument, the reader feels compelled to reflect on it. I certainly did.

Warmly recommended as a profound inquiry into moral choice, placed vividly in historical context. This is a masterpiece.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Film History Resource, February 8, 2008

By 

Andrew M. Rouhier (Dayton, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Naming Names (Paperback)

I was required to obtain a copy of this book for a class about the Hollywood Blacklist era, thus I expected it to be a boring near textbook like book. However, it is actually written very well and flows well enough to entice the reader to continue. If you have any interest in the Blacklist era, of which repercussions of it can still be seen today, I would read this book.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Background, August 7, 2006

By 

A.Armsworth "Vidscribe" (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Naming Names: With a new afterword by the author (Paperback)

This provides some "up close and personal" portaits of a number of persons directly affected by the HUAC hearings and the Hollywood Blacklist. Really interesting look at how individual lives were so drastically affected by this widespread witch hunt (and very relevant to the current state of our society!)