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Not Without Honor: The History of American Anticommunism Hardcover – January 15, 1996

3.6 3.6 out of 5 stars 13 ratings

Reminding readers of the serious threat that was posed by communism for several decades, a full-scale history of the volatile American anticommunist movement also profiles its most noted contributors. 15,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Richard Gid Powers is Professor of History at the College of Staten Island.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Free Press; First Edition (January 15, 1996)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 576 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0684824272
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0684824277
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.75 x 10 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.6 3.6 out of 5 stars 13 ratings

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Richard Gid Powers
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Customer reviews

3.6 out of 5 stars
3.6 out of 5
13 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2012
Richard Gid Powers' book on the history of anticommunism offers valuable insights about the problems that plagued the movement. Because of the misdeeds of Herbert Hoover, anticommunism came across as a movement indifferent to civil liberties. Because of the misdeeds of the counter subversive wing of the movement, anticommunism came across as a bunch of crazy kooks who saw a spy wherever they looked, something out of the X-Files. Because the smear tactics of the Dies Committee and Joe McCarthy, anticommunism was viewed in negative terms. But the story doesn't end here. It includes the principled leadership of Scoop Jackson, the intellectual legwork offered by the folks at Commentary Magazine and yes, the anticommunists in the American labor movement. His treatment of Whittaker Chambers does not demonize FDR, but shows the pragmatic choices Roosevelt had to make during World War II.

Powers unearths a lot of material and tells the story in a straightforward manner. Really impressive.

Many of the insights he provides in this book are readily applicable to the movement opposed to Islamism in the United States and the West. Very valuable.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2022
This is a very scholarly and sensible history of anticommunism in America. Too detailed for a light read but well done. I wish more time had been spent upfront making the anticommunist case. Much of the book was about how the anticommunist movement was spun in an only negative way over the decades. While true it was also frustrating. Makes me recall how critical it is to have an open and fair press or all you get is what appeals to the sensibilities of left of center progressive press types. How different our dialogues on many issues could be if we did not have a progressive filter via the main stream media. Worth a read but is very detailed
Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2015
A readable chronicle of the anticommunist movement in the United States during the 20th century. Now that communism is dead, the memory of its opponents lives on only as caricatures of paranoid witch hunters and persecutors of innocent social democrats. The book is a necessary counter that defends the honor of principled opponents of a malignant ideology.

Powers does lay into the anticommunists who were paranoid, witch hunters, and persecutors of the innocent. Who he places in that group apparently irks some reviewers. Also irksome to readers might be his dismissal of the excesses of the anticommunists as the outcome of a rambunctious but well-meaning political debate. Still, as his book relates and recent events continue to show, trying to place the ideas and principles of your political opponents outside the pale of polite society and proper civil discourse is a common tactic of the left and right.

While Powers criticizes the tactics of some anticommunists, he never analyzes their strategy or their motivation. He takes for granted that communism is obviously something that everyone--social democrats, Wilsonian progressives, Catholics, Jews, and libertarians--should naturally find abhorrent.

A more serious gap in the book that has widened over time is that the communists themselves mostly remain offstage. When Powers wrote the book the dust from the fall of the Berlin Wall was still settling. Even at that time communists were confused with social democrats and progressives. The book would have retained more of its value over time if Powers had shown the reader who the communists really were.
Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2017
Not good enough. I skimmed it.
Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2008
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.
8 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2003
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.
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Reviewed in the United States on November 22, 2013
See Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.'s 1996 review in Foreign Affairs,[ [...] ...] "The first three-quarters of Not Without Honor is well worth reading. Then Powers goes off the rails and, by discarding the fruitful distinction with which his analysis began, ends in a morass of self-contradiction."
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