Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective

By Richard M. Fried

Book Overview

According to newspaper headlines and television pundits, the cold war ended many months ago; the age of Big Two confrontation is over. But forty years ago, Americans were experiencing the beginnings of another era--of the fevered anti-communism that came to be known as McCarthyism. During this period, the Cincinnati Reds felt compelled to rename themselves briefly the "Redlegs" to avoid confusion with the other reds, and one citizen in Indiana campaigned to have The Adventures of Robin Hood removed from library shelves because the story's subversive message encouraged robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. These developments grew out of a far-reaching anxiety over communism that characterized the McCarthy Era.

Richard Fried's Nightmare in Red offers a riveting and comprehensive account of this crucial time. He traces the second Red Scare's antecedents back to the 1930s, and presents an engaging narrative about the many different people who became involved in the drama of the anti-communist fervor, from the New Deal era and World War II, through the early years of the cold war, to the peak of McCarthyism, and beyond McCarthy's censure to the decline of the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the 1960s. Along the way, we meet the familiar figures of the period--Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower, the young Richard Nixon, and, of course, the Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. But more importantly, Fried reveals the wholesale effect of McCarthyism on the lives of thousands of ordinary people, from teachers and lawyers to college students, factory workers, and janitors. Together with coverage of such famous incidents as the ordeal of the Hollywood Ten (which led to the entertainment world's notorious blacklist) and the Alger Hiss case, Fried also portrays a wealth of little-known but telling episodes involving victims and victimizers of anti-communist politics at the state and local levels.

Providing the most complete history of the rise and fall of the phenomenon known as McCarthyism, Nightmare in Red shows that it involved far more than just Joe McCarthy.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195043618
• ISBN13: 9780195043617
• Release Date: March 1991
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A very good review of an era

This is an extensive history of the era that shaped McCarthyism. The author traces the origins of anti-communism and America's struggle against radicalism. It starts with the first world war and ends with the censure of Senator Joe McCarthy. Those who are looking mainly for information about McCarthy will be disappointed, since he is not the main focus of this book.

Reviews by Nan Kilar and Bobby Miller

A well-written book about an American tragedy. Anyone with an ounce of compassion will suffer along with these Americans who were needlessly subjected to incomprehensible heartaches. Joseph Raymond McCarthy is still alive and well. Never has there been one more like this Republican Senator from Wisconsin than this Republican President from Connecticut, George W. Bush. There was no limit to the amount of lies McCarthy was willing to tell or the heart-wrenching pain and shame he was willing to subject others to so he could lord over them and feel superior. Then two men with guts came along-a journalist named Edward R. Murrow, who was very different than the over-paid invertebrates whose voices and faces come into our homes today. The other was Joseph N. Welch, chief attorney for the Army who simply said to McCarthy, "You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you no sense of decency?" Those words stripped McCarthy naked; and low and behold, there stood a frightened, pithy alcoholic who would die at the age of 49. It is easy to understand power hungry egomaniacs like McCarthy and Bush, but how they can attract such a large base among the rank and file is not easy to comprehend. I think Dr. King explains it best: "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

THE REVIEW

I felt that the book was not as objective as i would have liked it to be. I felt that opinions should have been kept out.