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.
Ellen Schrecker is Professor of History at Yeshiva University. She has taught at Harvard and Princeton and has authored numerous books including the award-winning No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities and The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents. She currently edits Academe, the magazine of the American Association of University Professors.
"If the national memory is ever to reach closure on this tragic episode, Schrecker's analysis is a significant and compelling contribution."—William J. Preston, Jr., Los Angeles Times
"[Schrecker's] thoughtful and earnest new study, Many Are the Crimes, offers the most comprehensive view yet of the process that turned a legal, political, economic, and cultural crusade into `the home front of the Cold War.'"—Henry Mayer, San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle
"A valuable contribution for anyone who would understand the dynamics of the domestic cold war. [Schrecker] has provided an alternative framework that does much to put McCarthyism in America in perspective."—Victor Navasky, The Nation
"Nothing could be more welcome to students and scholars of United States history than the appearance in paperback of Ellen Schrecker's history of the anti-Communist mania which disgraced America in the 1940's and 50's. . . .Schrecker's book is distinguished from its forerunners by its comprehensive scholarship (soundly based in archival research), lucid exposition and calm intelligence."—Hugh Brogan, Time Literary Supplement
"The book's great value is that it brings together recent work on McCarthyism and wonderfully illuminates the relationships between the component parts of that protean culture, and its own extensive original research enhances its authority. It is a true work of scholarship. The depth of Ellen Schreckert's research, her careful analysis and her elegant prose command respect."—M.J. Heale, American Studies
"It's all here, carefully researched, well written, and with a detached view of both the pursuers and the pursued. Excellent."—John Kenneth Galbraith, Harvard University
