Not Without Honor: The History of American Anticommunism [Paperback]

Mr. Richard Gid Powers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 20, 1998

The American anticommunist movement has been viewed as a product of right-wing hysteria that deeply scarred our society and institutions. This book restores the struggle against communism to its historic place in American life. Richard Gid Powers shows that McCarthyism, red-baiting, and black-listing were only one aspect of this struggle and that the movement was in fact composed of a wide range of Americans-Jews, Protestants, blacks, Catholics, Socialists, union leaders, businessmen, and conservatives-whose ideas and political initiatives were rooted not in ignorance and fear but in real knowledge and experience of the Communist system. "Not Without Power is superbly written and richly detailed. Perceptive and thoughtful, it is an impressively thorough and valuable book."-David J. Garrow "One of the contributions of [Powers's] provocative narrative history is to bring to life certain segments of anti-Communist opinion that have largely been forgotten."-Sean Wilentz, New York Times Book Review "[Powers] makes extensive use of primary sources and uncovers much that is new. He vividly recreates the complex relationships within and between several ethnic and radical communities within the United States, including their firsthand and often disillusioning experience with communism. . . . The depth and range of his work add a great deal to knowledge."-Journal of American History "A valuable, well-executed study and summation of a vast topic, one whose various threads the author has woven into a rich tapestry."-Richard M. Fried, Reviews in American History

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

History professor Powers's interpretation of anticommunism in American politics proposes a fundamental distinction between the movement's democratic character-represented by Robert LaFollette, Sydney Hook, and Congress for Cultural Freedom-and the better-known "countersubversive" right, which included J. Edgar Hoover, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). This work's appeal consists in recalling the forgotten integrity of the democratic elements, while its novelty lies in the author's argument that the "countersubversive" excesses of the 1950s justified the democrats' demise. As a result, the communists found a comfortable niche in the new left of the 1960s, leading to the "great irony" that liberals blundered into Vietnam without the "principles, values, and goals of [democratic] anticommunism." Fortunately, liberals' estrangement from anticommunists did not inhibit conservatives from expressing the movement's "culmination" through Ronald Reagan. The obvious controversy implied should not detract from Powers's painstakingly erudite detail and deep respect for his subject. Recommended for all academic and public libraries.
Zachary T. Irwin, Pennsylvania State Univ., Erie
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

In the author's view, the Red scares lent cartoonish discredit to sober anticommunism, so Powers means to rehabilitate the ism during the years 1917 to 1989 by telling what Americans were anticommunist, why, and what publicity they generated. Powers' stage is wholly domestic politics, with context about international events tacked on, and on that stage, Powers discerns a quartet comprising the anticommunist cast: "countersubversives" such as the FBI, liberal internationalists, labor unions, and the Catholic Church. Opposing them were the real domestic communists, until they petered out after their 1930s heyday, succeeded by the "anti-anti-communists," personified in civil libertarians and exemplified in the Carterian ridicule of Americans' "inordinate fear of communism." That phrase may stand as the standard of complacency about communism, with McCarthy-type conspiracymongers exemplifying reds-under-our-beds hysteria. In this factual rendering of organizations and their leaders, Powers proceeds far toward separating the real anticommunists from the crackpot fringe, making this a capable addition to the oeuvre about communism. Students will be principal users, followed by the occasional browser. Gilbert Taylor --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 596 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; First edition. edition (April 20, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300074700
• ISBN-13: 978-0300074703
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,118,392 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellant book, July 19, 2003

By 

Raymond D. Curry - See all my reviews

This review is from: Not Without Honor: The History of American Anticommunism (Hardcover)

This book is a history of American anti-communism from 1917 to 1991. It covers the good (Sidney Hook, Norman Podhoretz, William F. Buckley) and the bad (Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover). Mr. Powers conclusion is the bad does not stain the good and that American anti-communism was a positive force in the world, helping to free millions from the communist nightmare.

3 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Truth About Communism, September 6, 2008

By 

Manuel H. Rodriguez "m h rodriguez 'mhr" (burbank, ca.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Not Without Honor: The History of American Anticommunism (Paperback)

Many myths about communism died when the USSR fell into the ash heap of history. The opening of Soviet archives revealed the extent of many of the myths. We know now that Moscow financed and controlled the Communist Party USA. The idea that Americans who joined that party could be independent is a lie. They did what Stalin wanted done. Most of the American communists who betrayed the US were members of the CPUSA and revered Stalin. The Rosenbergs, who stole US atom bomb secrets for delivery to Moscow, were members of the CPUSA. The A bomb that Stalin tested was an exact copy of the one the US developed- no accident. The possession of the bomb gave Stalin the confidence to approve the invasion of South Korea by the communist North, a war that cost the US 50,000 lives. Many Americans fought communism but too often US liberals characterized them as the real enemy instead of the Communists. Not Without Honor is highly recommended reading for anyone who can accept the truth. I also recommended Venona, messages Moscow sent its US agents in the late 1940's and The Black Book of Communism, a detailed history of what Communism gave the world- 100 million murders of innocent people. Today many liberals act the way they did with respect to communism. They downplay the threat of terrorism and play up the "threat" to our civil liberties by those who fight terror. Some people never learn. One man who did learn was Ronald Reagan, who started out as a liberal Democrat and then learned to think accurately. To my regret I never voted for him- I was then a liberal Democrat and half-blind.

11 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A so-so effort gone terribly astray, February 14, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Not Without Honor: The History of American Anticommunism (Paperback)

I bought this book in the mistaken belief that the author might have something to add to the debate. Boy, was I wrong. I gave him one star for excellence in pagination.

Powers attempts to sort out the good anti-communists from the lunatic fringe (Hoover, McCarthy, Martin Dies, the Hearst Press etc.) and thus demonstrate that the anti-communist effort of the 40s and 50s was actually a positive good discredited only by the excesses of the fringe. The problem is that he himself can't sort them out, or even maintain his own premise. By the end of the book he's lamenting the demise of the very extremists he attacked in the beginning of the book as giving anti-communism a bad name!

He then goes on to claim, most strangely, that the fall of McCarthy (which effectively happened in 1954) silenced anti-communism in America, and that Eisenhower discouraged such for fear of reawakening McCarthyism -- as if it ever had been asleep, as if Eisenhower himself was not responsible for some of the worst excesses, including the tightening of Truman's infamous Loyalty and Security program, and the mass arrests of party leaders on grounds that were tossed out by the supreme court(but no doubt the court was a bunch of commies anyway).

What becomes evident (certainly in the last of the book) is that Powers himself suffers from the very malaise he is attempting to save anticommunism from. He condemns Kennedy for abandoning the struggle as a "holy war" and rationally viewing it as power struggle; Carter and Nixon become "appeasers"; and anti-anti-communists are responsible for the debacle of Vietnam. He then extolls Norman Podhoretz, a rabid extremist if there ever was one, in terms befitting a demi-god:"the one man with the will, the strength, the imagination to commence the giant task of rebuilding the anticommunist coalition," (for a moment I thought I was reading a love scene by Ayn Rand). He even, most bizarrely, gives partial credit to Podhoretz for winning the Cold War, and condemns George F. Kennan, the author of our containment policy and a most honorable anti-communist, as an appeaser and villain.

I'd return this book if I could, but in my disgust I've thrown it against the wall too many times. There were honorable opponents of Communism in those days -- those who believed in the marketplace of ideas and not repression -- but it remains unclear if this author could recognize one.