Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America

by Clay Risen

Named a Best Book of the Year by the New Yorker, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, and Kirkus Reviews

From an award-winning historian and New York Times reporter comes the timely story about McCarthyism that both “lays out the many mechanisms of repression that made the Red Scare possible…[and] describes how something that once seemed so terrifying and interminable did, in fact, come to an end” (The New Yorker)—based in part on newly declassified sources.

Now, for the first time in a generation, Clay Risen delivers a narrative history of the anti-Communist witch hunt that gripped America in the decade following World War II. This period, known as the Red Scare, was an outgrowth of the conflict between social conservatives and New Deal progressives, and the terrifying onset of the Cold War. Marked by an unprecedented degree of political hysteria, this was a defining moment in American history, completely unlike any that preceded it. Drawing upon newly declassified documents and with “scenes are so vivid that you can almost feel yourself sweating along with the witnesses” (The New York Times Book Review), journalist Clay Risen recounts how politicians like Joseph McCarthy, with the help of an extended network of other government officials and organizations, systematically ruined thousands of lives in their deluded pursuit of alleged Communist conspiracies.

Beginning with the origins of the era after WWI through to its conclusion in 1957, Risen brings to life the politics, patriotism, courage, and delirium of those years. Red Scare takes us beyond the familiar story of McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklists and toward a fuller understanding of what the country went through at a time of moral questioning and perceived threat from the Left, and what we were capable of doing to each other as a result.

“Thorough, impassioned...detailed, [and] tension-packed” (Los Angeles Times), Red Scare reveals an all-too-familiar pattern of illiberal conspiracy-mongering and political and cultural backlash that speaks directly to the antagonism and divisiveness of our contemporary moment.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, American History, How To, Book Club, Audiobook

471 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 18, 2025

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

"McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled up."

Americans like to think that we as a country have gotten more liberal and open-minded, but the more books I read about American History tells me that this country hasn't changed and it never will. McCarthyism is considered to have been a dark time in history that ended and we all look back on as ridiculous. But actually McCarthyism never ended it just mutated.

Replace the word "Communist " with "Woke" or "DEI" ....it's the same thing. The same type of people using the same type of accusations. What's old is new again. "They never stopped believing that white, conservative christianity was the bedrock of this country and they were determined to get it back."......Or in other words they wanted to Make America Great Again.

The Red Scare and it's hunt for commies didn't stop at Communist. It was, of course, anti-union, anti-women's rights, anti immigration, anti-gay, antisemitic and obviously anti Black American civil rights.

A few other things that were considered "Communist ":

- school integration
- public schools
- public libraries
- school libraries
-free school lunch
-public housing
-Hollywood films
- national Healthcare

Anti Communist banned books and staged book burnings. They wanted teachers fired for refusing to sign loyalty oaths to the United States. Hundreds of teachers and librarians were hounded out of their professions. They forced law firms and universities to comply with anti Communist edicts or be fined. They deported immigrants for speaking out against the US government.

If any of this sounds familiar that's because we are currently still in the Red Scare. Republicans and some Democrats back in the McCarthy era deemed anything they didn't like as Communist. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that McCarthyism and today's Republican party are one in the same. Robert Welch who worked closely with Joseph McCarthy, would go on to create the racist far right group The John Birch Society. Fred Koch who is the father of Republican super donors Charles and David Koch was a member of the John Birch Society. Welch was also a mentor of right wing journalist William F Buckley and he inspired Republican Senator Barry Goldwater and B- movie actor turned politician Ronald Reagan.

I'm not as troubled by current day American politics because my mother always told me that America was a racist piece of shit country....but she also always hoped it would change. It didn't in her lifetime and it won't in mine either.

I highly recommend Red Scare for people who want a deeper understanding of American history and America today.

[Caleb Fogler · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I know of no more serious danger to our legal system than occurs when ideological trials take place behind the facade of legal trials…” Justice William O. Douglas, Red Scare: Blacklists,McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America

Red Scare is the nonfiction account of America following World War II, focusing on the conservative led witch hunt of communist and socialists in America. Through this book readers watch the rise of an ambitious politician from California named Richard Nixon, the rise and eventual fall of Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy, and the targeted persecution of progressive leaning individuals and community leaders throughout the country.

Risen does a phenomenal job of making this period of American history accessible and engaging to a wide range of readers, from academic readers to your everyday history buff. It helps that Risen explains some of the lesser known individuals history and returning to them over and over to paint a portrait starring well known figures such as Eisenhower and Oppenheimer and these lesser known people such as Chief Justice Earl Warren or the Boston lawyer Joseph Nye Welch.

This period of history is obviously politically charged and I would make the argument that something similar is happening in the modern age with the “deep state” theories. But I felt that Risen was largely politically neutral painting the democrats and many liberals in a negative light along with the Republicans for selling out many of their liberal friends and allies, especially in Hollywood.

Overall a really enjoyable and still comprehensive book for this subject and it would be great for a reader looking for a nonfiction summer read.

[Florence Buchholz · Rating 5 out of 5]

To those who have lived through the Red Scare, today's headlines must seem like deja vu. Once again rights guaranteed by the US Constitution are under attack. Clay Risen sticks to the objectivity of his journalistic profession but the parallels to current Trump administrative policies are undeniable.

From the end of World War II until the mid fifties our country seemed to be in a state of anti communist hysteria. Right wing pundits convinced people that scores of communists were controlling social justice organizations, government agencies, labor unions, Hollywood studios, universities and even the US Army. These radicals were credibly planning to violently overthrow the government, they claimed. It was a greatly exaggerated fear that spread like wildfire, fanned by men such as Senator Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon. Lives were ruined by innuendo. People were hounded out of their jobs on scarce or non existent evidence. Some went to prison. Others avoided that fate by informing on their friends.

Today our government has fallen into a similar pattern of denying the right of free speech, free association and privacy from government intrusion into private sexual mores. Warrantless arrests are taking place. Risen, the author, compares our current situation to an underground fire in a coal seam. The illiberal passion that was ignited during the Red Scare has burned underground since that earlier time and has reemerged as a fear of immigrants, Diversity, Inclusion, Equity programs, and even demonization of Democrats as neo communists. These are perilous times; dangerous during the Red Scare and worse today.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clay Risen's Red Scare provides an updated survey of the postwar climate of anticommunist hysteria and repression in the United States. Making ample use of recent research, Risen shows that the era's "witch hunts" were partially motivated by serious security concerns in the wake of World War II - the presence of Soviet spies, now well-documented, in the US government and a number of progressive organizations, the threatening expansion of Stalin's USSR into Eastern Europe, Mao's victory in China and the development of atomic weapons - but largely, indeed overwhelmingly by domestic cultural and political concerns: conservative backlash against the New Deal, which was easily conflated with communist influence (not least when Roosevelt advisers like Alger Hiss were exposed as spies), fears of progressive labor and civil rights movements, and a generalized resentment at the social mores disrupted and changed, first by the Great Depression and then by World War II. More government involvement in citizens' lives, more women and African-Americans in the workforce, more tolerance towards changing sexual mores (including an ever-so-slightly more visible gay community), a more interconnected world threatening small town America and fears of crime, juvenile delinquency and family disruption. A lot of familiar American anxieties and resentments, for which Communism proved an easy, acceptable explanation - and grist for no shortage of opportunistic demagogues. Risen's work rehearses the era's usual set pieces: the trials of Alger Hiss, the Hollywood Ten and the blacklist, the Peekskill Riot targeting singer-activist Paul Robeson, the execution of the Rosenbergs, J. Robert Oppenheimer's downfall and of course Joe McCarthy's rise and fall. But he also folds in accounts of bureaucrats fired from government, gay and lesbian employees persecuted, teachers forced from jobs and labor leaders hounded out of the country. The book also explores the powerful anticommunist organizations and networks, from J. Edgar Hoover's FBI and the American Legion to a veritable army of citizens' organizations, who fanned the flames of fear, along with politicians from McCarthy to Richard Nixon who used the hysteria to advance their careers. Risen folds these stories into a cohesive, engaging narrative, stressing that the Red Scare didn't just affect the corridors of Washington and Hollywood screenwriters, but profoundly impacted broader American society and culture in ways that are still being felt. A solid work of popular history, with modern parallels obvious enough that Risen needn't spell them out.

[Scott Satterwhite · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent look at the McCarthy era, with an uneasy connection to our modern times. There were parts of this book that gave me anxiety. I am not normally somebody who feels that we are reliving historical moments, but this book pointed out so many similarities that it becomes hard to ignore.

There's a good focus on the major figures of this time, but a lot of space was given to minor figures as well. I found this book to me very well written and released at the perfect time.

The big takeaway that I found in this book is that McCarthy is a symptom of the era, despite his name being attached to it. Much of the underpinnings that drove the Red Scare we're there before him, absolutely continue to this day.

[Bill Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I knew much of this, Risen pulls it together in a highly readable, credible way. I also had to look up a couple words! Our country has had some wonderful moments and progress. The treatment of our citizens in this period of hysteria -late 40’s through the 50’s was despicable. There is a thread through to today.

[Nick Byers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Its not surprising that the Republican party is sycophantically supporting a fat slob who lies all the time, because they've done it before, and that fat slob's name was Joseph McCarthy.

If you're ever wondering why America doesn't have a lot of the safety nets that other "first world" countries have: universal healthcare, better worker's rights, etc. its safe to assume its because of this era of American history.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good, informative survey of this moment in American history. The book isn’t based on original research but it does a very good job of synthesizing the many different elements of this phenomenon, from the promoters in the government to the way the media reacted to effects in specific industries like Hollywood and education. The book is also very readable and accessible.

Obviously, if you want to know more about any individual thing, more specialist books will be more valuable — I have read a lot about the Hollywood blacklist so that part of the book was not new to me, for instance, but there was also a lot of information that I hadn’t encountered before. Again, the whole picture is synthesized well here, which is a valuable project for this moment in particular given the incoming presidential administration.

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

Risen details a turbulent time in American history. After The Great Depression and WWII Americans were more than ready for “normalcy.” But what they got was: The resurgence of hardline conservatism that lit up the culture wars and targeted its enemies; an expansionist Soviet Union taking over Eastern Europe and blockading Berlin; the Soviet controlled American Communist Party penetrating the US government, stealing critical secrets, and fomenting conflict; the CCP under Mao taking over China; the Korean War; the Soviet atomic bomb, the threat of mass destruction, the prospect of an unimaginable world war. Stir all the ingredients vigorously and paranoia reigns. Risen shows us the viciousness of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and McCarthyism, the attacks on Hollywood, blacklists, the search for communists everywhere, dramatic hearings and trials, the outpouring of accusations, and intense pressure on government, business, and especially Hollywood. The country was polarized and innocent people caught up in the frenzy demonized.

I was a child in the early fifties and remember well the TV series “I Led Three Lives” based on the life of Herb Philbrick: Communist spy, FBI double agent, and typical American family man. It was representative of the times with proliferating plots on espionage and sabotage threatening the American way of life. To a child and the chorus of paranoid people that saw communists wherever they looked, its theme was readily accepted. My notes follow.

Risen begins by tracking the activities of the HUAC in 1946 as it began calling progressives and liberals to testify in search of Communists and leftists. Following a Republican landslide that November, far-right zealots who believed communists controlled liberal organizations, labor, and Hollywood took charge of the Committee. Public anxiety grew. Truman felt compelled to institute a loyalty program. He authorized the FBI to run checks on government employees who faced dismissal for having associated with any communists or subversives.

The HUAC committeemen were culture warriors. In 1947 they attacked Hollywood for making movies deemed politically or morally unacceptable. They questioned actors, directors, screenwriters, and executives in hearings asking if they had ever been Communist Party members, associated with any, knew or suspected any. Those who wouldn’t answer were charged with contempt. The Committee had the FBI dig into their personal lives and trace past associations, which were used to imply guilt. Few in Hollywood were Party members. HUAC staged the hearings for maximum publicity with a bevy of reporters and newsreel cameras running. The Congressmen made dramatic statements and asked questions designed to draw coverage. HUAC’s pitch resonated with the public, scaring Hollywood moguls who caved. The American Legion among others called out offending publications and organized protests against “unacceptable” movies such as Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar Named Desire. The Catholic Legion of Decency set up shop in studios censoring scripts. The studios readily accepted their presence.

In 1948, Hollywood screenwriters and directors known as the Hollywood Ten were convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to answer HUAC’s questions. They were imprisoned, most for one year. Blacklisted from working in Hollywood, they couldn’t get jobs when released. Banks wouldn’t give them loans. Friends avoided them. Thus began an epidemic of blacklisting anyone who had supported targeted organizations or associated with people who had. Rumor and innuendo worked as well as fact to get Hollywood and major companies to fire employees for supposed communist sympathies. Hardline groups published lists of people that should be blacklisted. Employers found their products boycotted if they employed people on such lists. Red Channels was a widely accepted blacklist. Some organizations that put out blacklists also operated clearance programs, which gave those accused a way to get off the list by providing an acceptable written confession. First accusing and then clearing the accused worked like a racket benefiting these groups. Famous people such as director Elia Kazan caved, naming names and asking forgiveness. On the Waterfront was seen by some as his explanation for turning on past friends. One former friend, Arthur Miller, responded differently with The Crucible mimicking the paranoia of the time.

There was good reason to be concerned about Soviet activities in America. The Soviets had well organized spy networks actively conducting espionage including stealing nuclear secrets. The Party spread disinformation to benefit the Soviet Union and create conflict between Americans. Most American Communist Party members were not engaged in espionage. They drank the Kool-Aid and performed low level tasks like distributing The Daily Worker. HUAC’s methods were heavy handed with no respect for the many innocent people whose lives were ruined. The Committee’s statements and questioning assumed or implied people were Party members or Soviet functionaries often relying on innuendo, associations or just conflating support for labor, civil or human rights with promoting the Soviet agenda.

The hearings really took off in 1948 with the testimony of former Party member Whittaker Chambers identifying Alger Hiss as a Party member he knew. Hiss, a top-level diplomat with a pedigreed background, denied it with a lawyerly smooth performance. An ambitious Representative Richard Nixon thought Hiss a little too clever and dug deep investigating Hiss going for the kill. The media covered every detail of the hearings, broadcasting them and filming them. The August 25th HUAC hearing with Hiss and Chambers was the first Congressional hearing ever televised live. The public became divided over who was lying. Chambers shared copies of US documents with Nixon that Hiss had made and passed on to him. Nixon revealed them dramatically at a HUAC hearing. Hiss was indicted and convicted of perjury; the statute of limitations had run out on espionage. This was followed by a prominent suspect’s suicide and conviction of a well-placed DOJ clerk for espionage in 1949. That year 11 members of the Communist Party leadership were convicted under the Smith Act which outlawed advocating to overthrow the government. Meanwhile the Soviet Union took over one country after another in Europe and blockaded Berlin while Mao was taking over China. In August 1949 the Soviet Union detonated an atomic bomb. Americans felt more vulnerable than ever. Americans feared another world war. Fear of communists in America skyrocketed.

In 1949, the singer Paul Robeson, a strong supporter of trade unions and civil rights, was scheduled to give a benefit performance for the communist leaders in Peekskill NY. The gathering crowd was attacked by a white mob with American Legion caps wielding clubs and brass knuckles. Like many Americans the attackers saw communism, unionism, and race all tied together. Robeson had been warned away before he got there. A second event featuring Robeson was similarly attacked largely by members of veteran’s groups. Labor unions were widely considered communist controlled which was linked to the decision of many unions to strike after WWII. Risen states a third of CIO unions were communist controlled including some of the biggest. CIO chief Philip Murray supported by Walter Reuther expelled ones they believed were run by communists removing 700,000 workers.

Joseph McCarthy was elected to the Senate in 1946. He claimed to have a list of 205 communists in the State Department, but of course didn’t name them. A heavy drinker, gambler, slovenly in appearance and manners, with few friends he couch-surfed instead of getting his own place in DC. Peers and press saw him as a political low-life doing anything to get attention. His break came in 1950 in a lengthy dramatic Senate speech describing dangerous security threats active in the State Department with still no names. The press latched on and he was national news, taking every opportunity to feed the press whatever they wanted to get a headline. Other Republicans supported him and supplied him with material. In subsequent dramatic sessions he named names. When the accused came to testify in their defense, they would find McCarthy had moved on to new targets. With this constantly expanding list of supposed communists, McCarthy kept a polarized country in suspense. He was front page news for the next four years.

Going further he embraced the China Lobby which accused the China Hands, experienced knowledgeable diplomats in the State Department, of being communist sympathizers or agents. McCarthy was supported by many Americans who blamed Truman for “losing” China to the communists. Many demanded an all-out campaign to win the Korean War, even using the atom bomb and invading China, stoking fear of a world war. The commanding general in Korea, MacArthur, a hero to many Americans, spoke out supporting a wider war, saying war with China was inevitable. Truman was looking for a cease fire and in 1951 fired MacArthur for his defiance. The firing enraged the right wing. They went all out attacking Truman, Secretary of Defense George Marshall and the China Hands forcing removal of key diplomats.

Republican politicians rallied around McCarthy as they saw his attacks and devoted supporters’ impact on the 1950 midterm elections. Heavily favored high profile Democrats fell to unknowns in the blithering right wing assaults accusing their opponents of either being communists or soft on communists. Nixon won a Senate seat with a vicious campaign of communist smears to defeat former actress Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas, calling her “pink right down to her underwear." Old school New Dealers and liberals were in complete disarray. McCarthy supported by colleagues, expanded his attacks to include homosexuals and women, claiming both were easily exploited by Soviet agents. Playing on a culture that abhorred homosexuality and believed women belonged in the home, he gained more attention and grew his following. Supporters sent him money and tips on suspected communists and “security risks.” McCarthy emboldened by success became increasingly erratic. After a dinner party he physically attacked columnist Drew Pearson which turned into an all-out brawl. Richard Nixon intervened to stop it saying “Let a Quaker stop this fight.”

In 1953 Eisenhower became president and Republicans took control of Congress. During the 1952 campaign McCarthy had ferociously attacked former Truman Secretary of Defense and WWII Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall. Marshall was Eisenhower’s mentor and friend who had recognized Eisenhower’s talent early on and promoted him to senior positions. Eisenhower caved and threw away a speech he wrote defending Marshall. He made a politically expedient decision to let McCarthy go unchallenged even though Eisenhower didn’t like McCarthy. A strong anti-communist, he refused to stop the Rosenberg’s execution, despite significant public support to do so.

McCarthy became chair of a committee and its investigative subcommittee that he used to expand his attacks on government employees. He hired Robert F. Kennedy for his staff whose father Joseph Kennedy was a strong McCarthy supporter and major donor. He hired the vindictive lawyer Roy Cohn for his staff to find new people to target and demonize. Ironically Cohn was gay. Cohn even wrote McCarthy’s talking points. Lists of “subversives” were put out and used by groups like the American Legion to find anything to incriminate them. Risen calls it an early form of doxing. McCarthy succeeded in getting prominent figures in the State Department fired for being security risks, accusing them of being communist leaning or having “homosexual tendencies” which the Eisenhower administration considered a security risk. Ike and John Foster Dulles vowed to eliminate the “moral perverts” in the State Department and many were removed. State legislators followed suit removing suspected leftists and “sexual perverts.” McCarthyism became mainstream Republican.

McCarthy and HUAC went after teachers, professors, and librarians accusing them of association with leftist or communist organizations causing them to be fired from public schools and colleges across the country. Most Americans supported this. Books were censored and removed from schools and libraries, not only for “subversive” content but because the authors were considered leftists. For example, Dashiell Hammett’s novels such as The Maltese Falcon were banned, even a book of pure mathematics, because the author refused to answer questions for HUAC.

Finally, Eisenhower decided to go after McCarthy who remained widely popular with Republicans. First, he used VP Nixon to set a political trap for McCarthy forcing him to fire a key aide. McCarthy responded escalating his attacks. He went after the Army claiming it let communists operate in its Monmouth NJ facility and had even promoted a communist. He demanded examining the Army’s personnel records. The two engaged in political gamesmanship as both tried to diminish the other in the media. In 1954 Eisenhower backed the army hiring an effective outside lawyer, Joe Welch, to defend the Army and go on the attack in a McCarthy hearing. Welch frustrated McCarthy into outbursts and went after his right-hand man, Roy Cohn, implying he was homosexual, which had long been rumored. The hearing was televised and revealed just how crude and repulsive McCarthy was. Edward R. Murrow ran a TV documentary consisting of videos of McCarthy so the public could see what he was really like. By 1954 many more people had TVs, who prior only read about McCarthy in the newspapers. McCarthy’s stature began to quickly fade, from 50% public approval at the beginning of the year to 34% at year’s end. Even some Republican senators turned on McCarthy and in December the Senate censured him. Hate mail poured into those who had turned on McCarthy. Democrats won the Senate. The next couple of years HUAC sputtered along, but its influence like McCarthy’s was greatly diminished as the country moved on from the Red Scare. McCarthy died in 1957 but his believers would form new organizations like the John Birch Society to lead new conspiratorial movements.

[Sarah Schulman]

I have studied McCarthyism all my life, and this was a very accessible and cohering read that helped situate those events in the context of today. Risen basically shows us, from the top, how McCarthyism was a reaction to the pluralism of the New Deal that elevated women and Black, working-class and rural communities, artists, and voices to the national level- a rebellion of resentment by Christian white male power. Looking at it that way, connects these events from Jim Crow as a reaction to Reconstruction, "Anti-Communism" as a reaction to expansions of democracy, and today's fake "antisemitism" charges being used to justify repression, deportations, arrest, firings and the accompanying fear. A helpful and informative book. The final third is a bit episodic and not cumulative, but the examples provided help us draw insightful conclusions. Very readable.

[Bruce Katz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very early in his new book “Red Scare,” NY Times reporter Clay Risen writes, “This is a work of history, and as such it is not concerned with drawing parallels between the past and the present. I leave it up to the reader to find those as they will.”

Risen’s being a bit disingenuous here, I think: Not long after offering this disclaimer he quotes (of all things) Camus’ “The Plague” about how the “plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; it can lie dormant for years and years,” and then writes, “There is a lineage to the American hard right of today, and to understand it, we need to understand its roots in the Red Scare.”

So he’s giving away the game, but it’s not much of a reveal after all. Some things just can’t be disguised.

Clay’s book is an engaging (and more than a little disturbing) history of the second Red Scare (the one that came almost immediately after WW2; the first Red Scare took place late in the first World War and lasted for a couple of years). This period in our history is marked by names like the HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee), Whittaker Chambers, Alger Hiss, Roy Cohn, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the Hollywood blacklist, a young senator from California named Richard Nixon, and a young McCarthy staffer and family friend named Robert F. Kennedy.

For most Americans today, if they know anything at all about the Red Scare it’s because of movies like “Oppenheimer” and “Good Night and Good Luck,” or a play they read back in high school, Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.” The odds are better that they know the name Joe McCarthy. In the early 1950s McCarthy — Republican Senator from Wisconsin — was probably the most visible public figure in the United States. His prominence was such that his name became iconic in American politics. There are countless definitions of the word McCarthyism available but the one that strikes me as most direct comes from the online Student edition of Britannica: “The term McCarthyism is applied to the persecution of innocent people using powerful but unproved allegations… McCarthy’s accusations were never substantiated; they are now considered a frightening example of the effectiveness of fear tactics.”)

“Red Scare” explains how McCarthyism evolved, what cultural and political currents it represented, who the key figures were, and the effects it had — and has still — on the United States and its citizens.

Describing how the Red Scare played out in the post-War period makes it sound more than a little unhinged and paranoid. Powerful people in Congress and elsewhere firmly believed that Communists — Stalin’s knowing and un-knowing puppets — were secretly at work everywhere: in government, industry, education, Hollywood -- everywhere. Truman's Administration was filled with card-carrying Communist and sympathizers, his critics charged. His administration was deliberately soft on Communism; that's why we "lost" China. Eisenhower too: a terrible disappointment, weak, and unwilling to stand up to the Soviet Union. Everywhere you looked you found men and women seeking to undermine the United States and allow communism to take over the country.

Paranoid, maybe, but Americans bought into it in a big way. As Risen argues, the Red Scare grew out of numerous currents running through post-War America. The Soviet Union may have been America’s ally in the recent war against Hitler but now it was an aggressive, unprincipled, and cruel enemy whose agents corrupted ordinary, unsuspecting American citizens. The danger became existential in 1949 when the Russians successfully tested their first nuclear weapon.

“The Red Scare was, first of all, a cultural war, pitting two visions for America against each other, one progressive, one conservative,” Risen notes. He locates the proximate source of the culture war in conservative reaction to the government’s response to the Great Depression. "They had grown up thinking that America—real America, at least—meant small farm towns where government stopped at the mailbox, led by a white, male, business elite that bowed to no one save the local clergy. White, conservative Christianity was the bedrock of their worldview and their guiding light in politics. They had never stopped believing in such a country, and they were determined to get it back.”

Many Americans felt dispossessed and were easy targets for conspiracy theories and disinformation. And there was no shortage of people who, honestly or otherwise, responded to the anxiety and resentments of the moment.

The Red Scare took many forms in the late '40s and early '50s: Hollywood black lists kept well-known writers actors, and other figures off the movie lots and destroyed careers.Ordinary people were examined and interrogated. (“More than five million federal employees were investigated for potential ties to “subversive” organizations. Two thousand seven hundred were fired. More than twelve thousand quietly resigned. There was little recourse for appeal; even those who did get a hearing were unable to see the evidence against them, let alone face their accusers.”)

Loyalty oaths were required to get hired and keep jobs -- not only in the federal government but at state and town levels, even at local hardware stores and real estate offices. Lists were kept of people who might be subversives. Congress subpoena-ed lots of them. Grilled them, demanded that they name names or get put in jail for contempt. Judges routinely ignored the violation of Constitutional rights because the Communist threat was more important than the civil rights of individuals. The American Legion paraded outside theaters to dissuade people from seeing “suspect” movies. (“The sci-fi hit The Day the Earth Stood Still was at one point at risk of being yanked because, in one scene, the alien Klaatu dismisses humans as “stupid,” a description the local Legionnaires found dangerously close to Communist propaganda.”) Mothers of young children were told to scrutinize school libraries and report “subversive books to… the school board.” Librarians were attacked for the books they carried and professors for the context of their lectures. Small towns across the country staged mock drills of Communist takeovers.

Singled out for special scrutiny were labor unions and agitators for racial equality. (“If someone insists that there is discrimination against Negroes in this country, or that there is inequality of wealth, there is every reason to believe that person is a Communist,” said Albert Canwell, the chairman of the Washington State Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, one of the dozens of “mini-HUACs” that sprang up around the country in the late 1940s.”) And unsurprisingly, antisemitic accusations began spreading.

Most of all, there was Joe McCarthy. I won’t try to summarize Rosen’s coverage of the senator. But I will share some key points. First and foremost, McCarthy drew attention. He made himself into an “overnight star.” Millions of Americans now owned TVs, and his antics — dramatic and confrontational as could be — made him (as we might put it today) an attention magnet. What reporter or network could ignore anything like that?

I’ll let Risen speak for himself:

“One of the amazing things about the phenomenon that McCarthy and his associated “ism” would soon become is how, from the very beginning, reporters, congressmen, and other anti-Communists recognized him as a con man.

"What drove reporters’ interest in this man McCarthy? He was probably lying, they allknew. But after Hiss and Coplon, who could be sure? And as some reporters were already learning, there was a train-wreck quality to the senator that turned the press corps into rubberneckers."

“Even as he launched witch hunts, he believed he was the victim of one himself. He hinted to crowds that he was risking his life to bring them the truth.”

“He encouraged supporters to send money, and he claimed to receive a steady flow of letters enclosing wads of small bills.”

“Facts, accuracy, and consistency did not matter. On August 8, 1951, he promised to release the names of twenty-nine security risks currently or formerly in the State Department… But there was no there, there—whatever documents he claimed to have in his possession, he never gave them to the State Department.”

“The fact that, even after the Army–McCarthy hearings [exposed McCarthy], a third of Americans still supported him speaks to the strength of his conspiracy-minded populism. If anything, for millions, Senate opposition to his tactics only proved his claim that there was a massive, bipartisan plot in Washington, a pro-Communist cabal determined to quash anyone who tried to uncover it.”

I could continue, of course, but I think the quotes speak for themselves.

“This is a work of history, and as such it is not concerned with drawing parallels between the past and the present,” Risen writes. “I leave it up to the reader to find those as they will.”

The reader will not need a great deal of imagination to find parallels. True, Risen wrote the book knowing full well it would make readers see the shadows Donald Trump and MAGA. Arguably, he may have stressed certain things or used certain words to make the similarities unmissable. But that doesn’t make the argument wrong.

My thanks to Scribners and Edelweis+ for providing a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A history of the fear and anxiety of the 1930s to 1950s. HUAC and McCarthy terrorized US citizens relatively unchecked.

Former President Truman said, "McCarthyism...is the corruption of the truth, the abandonment of the due process of law. It is the use of the big lie and the unfounded accusation against any citizen in the name of Americanism or security...and it can destroy the great edifice of freedom."

A new generation finally got sick of the witch hunts. Chief Justice Earl Warren led the way to ending the legal foundations that the Red Scare were using. The ideas though would live on.

Thank you for reading!

[Edward]

“Although I haven’t yet had a chance to read it, Clay Risen’s Red Scare, published just a few weeks ago, seems equally silent on this crucial history that inspired the McCarthyism of the early 1950s.

This historical background was obviously so important that Herman probably should have allocated a full chapter to the topic rather than merely a couple of pages. But that couple of pages was still a couple of pages more than I found in almost any other book on McCarthy’s political rise.”
-Ron Unz, “McCarthyism Part II”

[Steven Z. · Rating 4 out of 5]

George Santayana's most famous quote regarding history is: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." This quote emphasizes the importance of learning from past mistakes to avoid making them again. I guess when one looks at our contemporary political, social, and economic landscape we as a society have not followed the Spanish-American philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist’s advice. We live in a partisan world where things seem to be defined by which tribe we belong to. It appears that our country is split almost down the middle in terms of our loyalties and belief systems. Currently, the administration that occupies the White House is led by a cult leader whose primary goal is power and enrichment for himself and his family. To achieve this, he has manufactured a world identified as “Make America Great Again” or MAGA and through executive orders and partisan legislation seeks to implement what has been identified as “Project 2025” which will devastate certain governmental components, social programs for the poor, the international trading system, the federal budget, our immigration system, and god knows what else that is written in the weeds of that document.

In examining American history, I can think of three periods where contemporary events have their role model. One is the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, when tariffs, crony capitalism, and hard-and-fast hierarchies were the stuff of American politics. Secondly we turn to the 1920s with its version of anti-communism, an economic system that was overloaded with debt, highlighted by Wall Street, racism manifesting itself in anti-immigrant legislation, and a strict reshaping of American politics. Lastly, is the post-World War II period highlighted by the Red Scare, when the federal government was weaponized against the American left. This last example sounds familiar as we are bombarded on a daily basis by public commentary and social media posts by our president who has weaponized the Justice Department seeking revenge against his perceived enemies be it individual politicians, educational institutions, businessmen or lawyers who do not conform to his demands, a feckless Congress and Supreme Court, all with the goal of seeking total fealty to the beliefs of one man.

In Clay Risen’s latest historical monograph, RED SCARE: BLACKLISTS, McCARTHYISM, AND THE MAKING OF MODERN AMERICA the author examines a period that is close to being the precursor of our contemporary world. President Trump vows to root out “radical left wing lunatics” and “Marxist equity” from the bowels of the state. One of Trump’s minions, former DOGE overlord Elon Musk has proclaimed that U.S.A.I.D. designed as a soft power vehicle to enhance American popularity in poor countries particularly by improving their health care is “a viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists” and deserved to be destroyed. This commentary which pervades actors in the current administration sounds like Senator Joseph McCarthy, legal counsel Roy Cohn, Senator and later Vice President Richard Nixon, and even Robert F. Kennedy, and many others. In fact, McCarthy garnered a range of support, including from fellow Republicans, some ordinary Americans, and even some Democrats. His supporters often believed in the necessity of identifying and suppressing perceived communist influence, justifying the denial of civil liberties to those deemed subversive. Conversely, many Americans and political figures strongly opposed McCarthy's tactics, highlighting the divisive nature of the movement as he lied over and over about the dangers of the “Red Menace.” Risen’s book shows that the Red Scare burst forth from a convergence of Cold War fears and a long festering battle between social conservatives and New Deal progressives. Risen begins at the outset of the Cold War concluding with McCarthy’s death in 1957 providing a fuller understanding of what the American people experienced at a time of moral questioning and perceived threats, and what people are capable of doing to each other under the right circumstances.

Risen has an interesting metaphor in approaching his topic by discussing how a bacillus, in this case, cultural and political can, lie dormant for decades and reappear years later. The bacillus of the 1950s Red Scare receded but did not totally disappear in the decades that followed, but its lineage has reemerged in the last decade or so with the American hard right. To understand contemporary culture and politics which is occurring before our eyes today we must understand it and its roots in the Red Scare. This is not to say that Trumpism and the MAGA movement is the same as McCarthyism and the John Birch Society, but there is a line linking them. Risen’s goal is to demonstrate that at a moment in the late 1940s, and in a certain political and cultural context, that knowing where we are today requires an understanding of where we were then.

Risen quickly turns to the origins, personalities, and actions of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), especially toward its witnesses and the people they were trying to destroy and disseminating its right wing agenda. The Committee would become the spear driving a decade long campaign of intolerance and political oppression. Risen clearly develops the case that the emergence of a strong anti-government agenda which used the fear of communism as a foil against its opponents had its origin in hatred for the New Deal and Franklin Roosevelt (much like Trump’s abhorrence of any achievement wrought by Barack Obama or Joe Biden). The anti-communist movement morphed into an anti-civil rights movement represented by HUAC and other congressional committee investigations highlighted by its war against Hollywood, epitomized by the investigation of Dalton Trumbo and the Hollywood Ten. For HUAC members and others the New Deal was a “stalking horse” for Soviet collectivization, which today we refer to as the deep state. The conundrum as Risen argues is that there were two visions of America; “one built on an expansive vision of government as the guarantor of the rights and welfare of all its citizens, the other built on a retrograde nostalgia for an America built on privilege and exclusion.”

The author integrates the major figures of the period nicely. Whether presenting the careers and beliefs of Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, J. Parnell Thomas, Dalton Trumbo, J. Edgar Hoover, Roy Cohn, Richard M. Nixon, Elizabeth Bentley, Judith Coplon, Harry Bridges, Owen Lattimore, Alger Hiss, Whitiker Chambers, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, and a host of others, Risen analyzes their role in the Red Scare and their impact on post-war American history.

The 1948 election plays a key role in Risen’s analysis as Truman was able to defeat New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey. After losing the 1946 congressional elections to Republicans Truman realized he needed to shore up support with those who felt he was weak on communism. This would lead to the Federal Loyalty Program and a rhetorical war within the Democratic party represented by former Vice President and Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace. During the 1948 campaign Dewey, to his credit did not get down and dirty with other Republicans who went after Truman as being “soft on communism.” With their defeat, Republicans learned their lesson and in future elections they had no compunction about using politics of the gutter.

It takes Risen almost halfway through the narrative to introduce Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. According to Risen McCarthy had a “unique ability to braid the two strands of the Red Scare – the culture war and the politics of Cold War security – into a single cord.” McCarthy was a Senate “nobody” until he forced his way on the scene in January 1950 accusing the State Department of harboring 205 communists in its midst. McCarthy’s story has been told before in excellent biographies by David Oshinsky, A CONSPIRACY SO IMMENSE: THE WORLD OF JOE McCARTHY and Larry Tye’s more recent work, DEMAGOGUE: THE LIFE AND LONG SHADOW OF SENATOR McCARTHY. However, Risen presents an astute analysis reviewing the McCarthy hearings and his obfuscations, outright lies, and the careers he destroyed, as he turns to the role of an individual’s sexuality during the Red Scare.

Focusing on Carmel Offie, a U.S. State Department and later a Central Intelligence Agency official, who served as an indispensable assistant to a series of senior officials while combining his official duties with an ability to skirt regulations for his and others' personal benefit. Offie’s career is important because he was gay and becomes the center of Risen’s discussion of how McCarthy and his Republican allies believed that sexual perverts had infiltrated the government and “were perhaps as dangerous as the actual Communists.” McCarthy and his allies helped push the politics of homophobia at a time of animosity toward Washington, particularly the State Department which was blamed for the loss of China a few months before McCarthy gave his damning speech in Wheeling, West Virginia. The name given to the move to dismiss and prosecute gay people was the “Lavender Scare.” Thousands would lose their jobs and careers due to their machinations as they now had another tool to fight their culture and political wars against the Truman administration and their supporters.

It is clear from Risen’s account that McCarthy was able to rouse support because of the earlier work of the House Un-Activities Committee, the Chambers-Hiss imbroglio, and the actions of Richard M. Nixon. McCarthy would take advantage of the fall of China to the Communists and the outbreak of the Korean War. Further, certain personalities gravitated to the Wisconsin senator, and they would develop a relationship based on the need for power, ideology, and the ability to use each other. Two of those individuals were Alfred Kohlberg, a millionaire ideologue who made his money taking advantage of cheap Chinese labor and McCarthy would become his megaphone concerning the loss of China and the role of the State Department. The second individual was Roy Cohn, who in his later career became Donald Trump’s mentor. In his earlier career he would join McCarthy’s staff and mirror his viciousness, vindictiveness, and willingness to lie. Risen describes him as “the chief executive of McCarthyism, Inc., determining the senator’s targets, writing his talking points, and pushing him further than even he might have chosen to go.”

The fall of China to Mao Zedong and his forces greatly impacted American politics and paranoia. This was fostered by what is referred to as “the China Lobby,” a term often used for groups favoring the Republic of China on Taiwan under the leadership of Kuomintang head, Chiang Kai-Shek, an American ally during World War II. The China Lobby’s collective influence, fostered by Alfred Kohlberg and others, shaped policy and politics throughout the 1940s and 50s boosting and destroying careers as they enlisted McCarthy to their cause.

If we would set up an opposition to the China Lobby it would be called the “China hands,” career State Department diplomats and officials who had grown critical of Chiang Kai-Shek’s forces during the Chinese Civil War. They believed the US could not turn back to imperialism and the Chinese people had the right to determine their own future. Risen lays out the China lobby’s victory through McCarthy as many Asia experts in the State Department had their careers destroyed as well as Asia scholars at Harvard. Interestingly, the purge of the State Department deprived policy makers with experts on Asian countries and movements. It would be interesting to ponder what would have occurred in Korea and Vietnam if these individuals had been in place to offer their expertise. Perhaps the many errors surrounding the eventual “domino theory” could have been avoided.

Whether it was Hollywood, HUAC, or McCarthy, all of whom Risen explores in marvelous detail, the anti-communist hysteria of the early 1950s drew much of its energy from the ongoing war in Korea, exacerbated by the entrance of Chinese Communists troops into the war. Interestingly, General Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters in Tokyo became a satellite headquarters for the China lobby and the hard-core anti-communist right. Once MacArthur was fired by Truman it provided the hard core right with further ammunition against the president, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, and General George C. Marshall, and others who were critical of Chiang Kai-Shek and the Kuomintang.

The atmospherics of the time period are expertly recreated by the author. Risen’s descriptions of committee hearings, including the demeanor of witnesses, the response to questions, and the overall climate of this phase of American history allow the reader to feel as if they are in the committee rooms, the oval office, experiencing the political debates, and getting to know the major and minor players of the period.

A criticism of Risen is offered in Kevin Peraino’s New York Times book review entitled “Scarlet Fever: Culture in the United States is still driven by the political paranoia of the 1950s,” published on April 6, 2025. Peraino correctly writes; “Risen, a reporter at The New York Times who has written a history of Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, among other books, coyly insists that he is “not concerned with drawing parallels between the past and the present” and desires to “leave it up to the reader to find those as they will.” But this is disingenuous. In his 400-some pages Risen touches on anti-fascism, white supremacy, campus activism, anti-elitism, cancel culture, virtue signaling, doxxing, book bans, election interference, anti-immigrant racism, F.B.I. overreach, conspiracy thinking, antisemitism, the surveillance state, anti-colonialism, the Koch family and America First-style ultranationalism. To suggest all this amounts simply to a Rorschach test for his readers stretches credulity.”
In her recent New Yorker article, entitled; “Fear Factor: How the Red Scare reshaped American politics,” historian Beverly Gage concludes; “What can we learn about our current moment from all of this? Risen hopes that readers will decide for themselves. “This is a work of history, and as such it is not concerned with drawing parallels between the past and the present,” he writes. “I leave it up to the reader to find those as they will.” So, as a reader, let me offer a few thoughts.
The unfortunate truth is that most mechanisms of the Red Scare, including congressional hearings and loyalty investigations, would not be especially hard to revive. Indeed, recent developments have indicated that they might be deployed with genuine glee. Already, the Trump Administration has started asking for lists—of federal workers who attended D.E.I. training, of F.B.I. agents who investigated January 6th cases, of scientists engaged in now suspect areas of work. Trump himself has openly announced his intention to deploy the Justice Department and the F.B.I. against his personal, political, and ideological enemies.
The history of the Red Scare suggests that it won’t take many firings, federal inquiries, or acts of public humiliation to frighten a whole lot of people. But it also offers some reason to think that such intimidation methods may not be quite as effective this time around. For starters, there is much less agreement about the Trump Administration’s agenda than there was about Communism in its heyday. The Red Scare gained momentum because nearly everyone in American political life shared the same basic assumption: Communism is bad and poses an existential threat to the American way of life. It’s hard to come up with any contemporary issue that would generate the same powerful consensus.
Generally speaking, we also have better protections for political speech and assembly than Americans had in the fifties. Indeed, some of those protections are legacies of the Red Scare. In 1957, as the anti-Communist furor was winding down, the Supreme Court issued a series of decisions limiting some of the most sweeping methods deployed against political dissenters, including parts of the Smith Act.

But to say that Trump won’t necessarily succeed in setting off a new Red Scare is not to say that he won’t try. And, in this sort of politics, the trying is part of the game. As long as the nation’s “cultural Marxists” feel vulnerable to random accusations or secret investigations, they’ll likely be more careful about what they do and say. As Roy Cohn once instructed a young Donald Trump, much can be accomplished by attacking first and dealing with the consequences later.” Today, with trade wars, immigration, DOGE’s dismantling key aspects of the federal government, cutting foreign aid etc. we are now experiencing Cohn’s advice to Trump, and I wonder a few years down the road how bad the impact will be, and how long it might take to undo what he has done.

[MM Suarez · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Of course, the New Deal’s critics stood for a different kind of elitism, one built on inherited wealth and white male privilege. At issue, really, were two ideas about America: one built on an expansive vision of government as the guarantor of the rights and welfare of all its citizens, the other the other built on a retrograde nostalgia for an America built on privilege and exclusion."

That statement just about describes what the issues were then and what they still are today, as evidenced by the fact that the current administration's agenda is all about destroying all the gains made during and after the New Deal, they are succeeding in my opinion.
One other thing that comes to mind is that Mr. McCarthy ("bless his heart"), would have felt right at home today in the 119th Congress, heck they probably would make him Speaker of the House or Senate Majority Leader, he would just have to learn a few new words like "woke", " DEI", etc.
This was a very good book but every time I read these historical accounts they make me realize how easy it is for history to repeat itself, the author states that there have been two Red Scares in our history and for someone paying close attention it looks like we're in the middle of a third. Maybe they don't use the word Communism to scare us as much today, but it's been replaced by Socialism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, etc.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

The parallels between the Red Scare of the 1940s and 50s and our political culture in 2025 are chilling. I learned a lot. Also appreciated Risen’s narrative and character-driven style of writing, which leverages suspense and plot to teach about this important chapter in modern history.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paranoia, conspiracy-mongering, corrupt and utterly irresponsible national political leadership bullying their way past all check and controls on their behaviour, media reporting irresponsible fearmongering and publicity stunts without factchecking at all, courts unwilling to hold power to account, daily violations of the constitution and rule of law, cowardly institutions, witch hunts and purity checks that leave ordinary people living in fear, all fueled by unchecked racism, misogyny, and contempt for any and all dissent. Sound familiar?

[Dale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book about an interesting time in American history as citizens face the menace of communism at home in the Cold War, not always reacting in the best of ways. Politicians sometimes take advantage of the scare to further careers only to undermine the real threat.

[Krista | theliterateporcupine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely Thorough and Informative. Many of the names Risen highlighted during the McCarthy era I hadn't heard of it, so it was interesting to listen to. A little Dense and times but definitely an authoritative text.

[Mia Abbe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I fear that listening to this on audiobook was not a good move because I kept zoning out. I think I got bits & pieces of what happened with the red scare but truly don’t ask me about it because I still don’t know.

[Adam Behlman · Rating 4 out of 5]

As if nothing change from 80 years ago. Rinse. Repeat. Well researched.

[Sean Kinch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific work, start to finish. Changes the way I think about the entire era. As Risen puts it, McCarthy was a symptom of the hysteria, not the cause.

[Steve Robitaille · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still red and scary after all these years!

Impossible to read “Red Scare” and miss the parallels to today’s headlines. Made me recall the red covered anti-communism booklet we had to read and memorize in school. Fast forward 60 years and the anti-woke fever would once again inflict poet Blake’s “mind-forged manacles,” on the citizens of this country.

[Stephen Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Red Scare is a largely chronological account of the "2nd Red Scare", meaning that it moves from immediately after WW2 through most of the 1950s. His main themes are not particularly new - there were, in fact, lots of Communists in America immediately after WW2, but very few of them were actually Soviet agents and they never posed a serious threat to the United States. The paranoia about Communists at the time was understandable given the shift in the American attitude towards the Soviets, and particularly Stalin, after the war, especially when combined with world events of Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech, the Truman Doctrine and the "fall of China" to the Communists. This paranoia was seized upon by opportunistic politicians, although a fair bit of them were true believers in the Communist threat, to further their own careers and score political points. He covers a lot of ground, beginning with the end of WW2 before moving on to Truman-era loyalty programs, HUAC hearing and Hollywood screenings, spy cases, McCarthy’s rise and fall, and the broader cultural purges targeting homosexuals. The big picture issues that Rosen talks about are not exactly new, but he gets into a level of detail that I haven't seen before that really helps understand why people at the time thought got swept up in the hysteria. This book is exceptionally well-written and I ripped through it in about four days. Rosen tells a story that is relevant to anyone interested in popular politics and weaponization of the media and he tells it very well.





Here are my thoughts on Risen's important and memorable points.
1. Communism had been thought of as a benign and possibly useful philosophy by many Americans in the 1930s, although there was a still a strong majority against it. But with the Soviet and the American entry into WW2, "Uncle Joe" became more broadly accepted. Many people, especially among the more educated, found the ideas of equality preached under Marxism to be appealing, although many quickly soured on it when the CPUSA got into the details, especially on conformity. After the war, the abrupt shift in messaging was at first confusing, but then strong enough to worry Americans about the threat of Communism. Truman realized that Stalin was looking for places to expand his influence and that only the United States could counter it. But to get the resources to do that, he needed Congress and the American people behind him. To do that, he sold the Communist threat in a fiery speech to introduce the Truman doctrine, in which he tried to "scare the hell out of the American people". Truman was mainly thinking of Soviet military and political influence overseas, but to placate his domestic critics, he signed Executive Order 9835, which instituted a federal "loyalty program". This, in turn, unleashed a wave of paranoia about Communist agents in the United States, which Truman did nothing to stop, even though he did not believe there was a significant threat.

As part of this hysteria, the government made use of two anti-fascist measures to fight the new enemy of Communism within the United States. The first was the 1940 Smith Act, which made it illegal to advocate the violent overthrow of the American government. Claiming that the CPUSA did advocate that, the FBI targeted its leaders, even though they knew the legal case against them was very shaky. The second was the HUAC, which was less interested in getting convictions than in winning in the court of public opinion. The biggest event for HUAC was uncovering Alger Hiss as a former Soviet spy, leading to his conviction of perjury. There were also smaller trials under the Smith Act, which got convictions more because of shifting public opinion against Communism (and some incompetent legal defense) than because of any actual plots agains the USG. These hearing and trials helped institutionalize anti-communism in the US government and set the stage for later witch-hunts.When Eisenhower became President, he enhanced these checks to include all things that might make someone a security threat, even if they were loyal. He also did not directly fight McCarthy because of his popularity, but he did try to undermine him. He may have played a significant role in McCarthy's fall by orchestrating a live hearing that revealed McCarthy's crude side. The hearing was watched by more people than most and support for McCarthy dropped like a rock, although around 1/3 of Americans still supported him.

As this was happening, the American left began serious infighting over the Soviet threat. Henry Wallace was the leader of the progressive wing that advocated for more social welfare programs. Wallace had been FDR's Vice-President in his third term until Roosevelt jettisoned him because of his overly liberal views. Wallace ran as a third party candidate in 1948, but was a complete flop, leaving Truman as the standard bearer for the left. This meant that both parties were led by staunchly anti-communist leaders, leaving few people in power to resist "red-baiting".

One particularly unsettling example of the new anti-communist fervor was in Peekskill, NY, where anti‑Communist mobs attacked Paul Robeson supporters for being pro-Communist. Robeson was an outspoken critic of racism in the United States, which linked him in the mind of many as a communist-sympathizer. He definitely had leanings in that direction, especially about social justice and international solidarity, and he refused to publicly condemn the USSR or its policies. In this instance, people attending his concert were attacked while the police did nothing. Robeson escaped unharmed but later made public statements that outrages like these go against American ideals, but are common in the south. This also highlighted the connection in many Americans' minds between the civil rights movement and Communism because civil rights leaders had similar talking points as some Soviet propaganda. This would continue as the civil rights movement picked up steam through the 1950s.

When Risen moves to McCarthyism, he does an excellent job trying to explain how this happened. McCarthy himself was not taken seriously by his colleagues or most of the press, but he knew how to make a headline and tapped into an already existing paranoia of Communism. He was influential not only because he sold papers and gained viewers for TV shows, but because anti-Communism was taking root locally, making it potentially very costly to be accused of Communist sympathies. An example of this was the "China Lobby", which was a group of politicians who were looking for someone to blame for Chiang Kai-Shek's defeat in China. They focused on the "China hands", which were a group of American diplomats and scholars who were experts on China. Because the China hands (accurately) thought that Chiang Kai-shek was a basket case and was going to lose to Mao and the Red Army, they were accused of actively trying to undermine Chiang and of betraying him. Truman went along with it because his popularity was plummeting because of the Korean War and his sacking of MacArthur. This episode cost a lot of people their careers and deprived the USG of expertise that it desperately needed. This is a classic case of people putting ideology before expertise and evidence.

Another aspect of McCarthyism was how it conflated other fears of Americans, especially around gender-roles. Female empowerment was promoted during the war, but by 1950 was being seen as something that commies would do, while American women should stay home and raise a family. This was personified in Helen Gahagan Douglas when she ran against Nixon for a US Senate seat. She was called "pink down to her underwear" (that is a quote from a Nixon supporter, not Nixon himself), which managed to attack her ideology while also sexualizing her. She lost badly. Similarly, homosexuals, especially men, became targets. This was initially because they were seen as being ripe for blackmail and therefore a security risk, but it soon became a movement to hound gay men out of public life.

Red baiting in Hollywood hit its height with the rise of McCarthy, eventually leading to blacklists of potential communist-sympathizers. The "Hollywood Ten", writers who were considered to be suspect so studios would not hire them, some of whom went to jail for contempt of Congress. After the outbreak of the Korean War, HUAC moved on to actors, actresses and directors who had to actively and eagerly denounce Communism and name people who were involved in it. If they were not convincing enough, they could be unofficially blacklisted. Studios were afraid to hire suspect actors because, if they did, they faced the prospect of pickets outside the movie theaters from the American Legion or other local civic groups.

The paranoia that McCarthy capitalized on was rampant in society, where businesses and institutions often required loyalty oaths. This was particularly prevalent around schools where teachers were often accused of passing communist ideas to students. Many lost their jobs and careers as a result. This also included culling libraries of suspicious books or of books by suspicious authors.

One thing that drove McCarthyism was the high profile spy cases, especially the Rosenbergs. Risen argues that the execution of the Rosenbergs was illegal and required some mental and linguistic gymnastics to make it happen. He also suggests that the prosecutors never wanted to execute either of them, but used the threat of execution to get them to flip on their co-conspirators. They kept quiet and the prosecutors couldn't back out of it.

The end of McCarthy's reign of terror was largely around his hearings on the army and his fight with Edward R. Murrow, but the paranoia behind it was still going. People accused of communist links were still being blackballed, although the rate at which people were being accused slowed significantly. The collapse of the CPUSA in the early 1950s and the subsequent "De-Stalinazation speech by his successor made it difficult to take the Soviets as quite the same menace in American society. Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 also showed Soviet weakness because one of their closest allies was trying to escape its influence. Then the Warren court issued a series of opinions that undermined the legal framework for red-baiting.

Risen concludes by looking at the Red Scare's legacy. He suggests that its end simply pushed the feelings of a conspiracy deeper underground and that many people who still lionized McCarthy thought that the government was no longer in the hands of the people. He doesn't exactly say it, but it draws an implicit parallel to conspiracy theories today and the "deep state".

[Jon Davids · Rating 5 out of 5]

Risen's comprehensive history of the "Red Scare" connects the past to the present. His analysis considers the Red Scare to be a period consisting of culture wars and constitutional crises. Although McCarthy is the most well know player, Risen identifies many other important individuals, which had me referring to Google University archives for more information and deeper back stories. The stream of anticipatory obedience; the capitulation of industries, intuitions, and individuals; and the roles of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the US government during the 1950s all have relevance and provide insights into our current political landscape. This book connects the dots and leaves the reader with much to consider concerning current events.

[Greg Tate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank god our government isn’t like this anymore!

[Sage · Rating 4 out of 5]

"McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled up" - Joseph McCarthy

The way that leftists are the same throughout time: bragging about being accused of communist plots to overthrow feeling unimportant if not summoned at least initially, looking for purity rather than allies getting in the way of growing coalitions and political power on the left, during Red Scare over 25% of union members were kicked out for being accused of communist, massively deflating bargaining power as well as loosing some of the hardest working/ most loyal members and most visionary leaders those to the left dreaming of a more equitable, intersectional future.

McCarthy seen as a clear liar from the beginning but "given some rope to hang himself with" but instead used it to gather power and persecute others rather than getting caught in his lies his platform allowed him to continue lying unchecked.

Lavender Scare grew from Red Scare, WW2 served as a big coming out moment followed by hard backlash. Being in the closet meant you were a liar and therefore a security risk more easily black mailed and likely to be a communist. Intertwined paranoia, conspiracy of a "queer kabal" connected to communist infiltration.
Post WW2 women had increasing education and credentials but were being pushed out of work force but found slightly more footing within government jobs and bureaucracies, they became purged with accusations of lesbianism (for pursuing careers instead of home making) and during Red Scare as many of them were somewhat leftist for their ties to feminism and other college years idealist projects, though rarely were they explicitly communist so much as interested in civil rights.

Racism & Red Scare, tied to the re-establishment of a white culture and "American values."
Thinking abt political whiplash/ backlash and the way our current MAGA references Reagan's 1980s MAGA which referenced the 1950s which was having its own MAGA moment romanticizing pre-war gender roles pre- New Deal class and race roles too.

The China Lobby and the shaping of Red Scare via commercial interests in the East influenced political hegemony and culture war in the US.

Civic engagement groups such as veterans groups but also PTA, boy scouts, & minute women and other groups based around patriotic values served as coordinated surveillance apparatuses within their local communities which they would pass info about potential leftists and liberals to the FBI. They would spread far right ideas, sometimes collaborate with the KKK and flood PTA and city council meetings, Greek life, etc.

Childhood toys esp for boys began to reflect the Red Scare with the proliferation of army men, GI Joe's, books on the subject, bubble gum and playing cards filled with propaganda as well.

Surveillance, a politics of fear and righteous anger, violent propaganda all led to a boiling over of violence with militias and vigilante groups often misdirected in their targets on neighbors.

Even under Truman (the democratic president who came into office under Roosevelt), lists of those involved or who had been involved in "subversive" groups were created and plans drawn to place them in concentration camps in case of emergency.
"By 1950, red baiting was no longer just an option but a requirement of republican candidates."
Nixon and Reagan both got their careers started through red baiting, Reagan clearing leftists and liberals out of Hollywood and focusing on union breaking there with Ayn Rand before moving explicitly to politics proper.

Rosenbergs- put on trial for espionage of atomic secrets but convicted of treason despite lacking proper evidence and the fact that the USSR was a US ally in WW2 when the crime took place and they got war time penalties even tho the war was over (peacetime law doesn't allow for death penalty). They were Jewish too and anti-semitism likely also impacted their trial which was publicized with much public fear and rage. They were executed to make an example, esp Ethel who really wasn't that involved they just thought they could get more info from Julius if they threatened to execute his wife and after he didn't back down and offer it up they didn't feel they could not follow through on the threat so publicly made. They were also supposed to have 2 corroborated witnesses and there was just 1 who later said he fudged the details under pressure. Their trial became a litmus test during the Cold War for red baiters to clock each other or their victims based on what people thought about the outcome. People also got heavy espionage sentences for smuggling out much lesser important docs abt public infrastructure, visas, etc. and accusing a co-worker esp women, people involved in civil rights, and people expected of being queer were targeted to be removed from government jobs even without any evidence behind the accusation.
Mexico City became the place to go to for those who had to escape European fascism and later US McCarthyism esp amongst those engaged in cultural production which was targeted even before political dissidents.

"The sheer volume of accusations made even skeptics believe there must be some kernel of truth to the conspiracy."

"The terror of index cards" the explosion of US bureaucracy and info collection fueled the paranoia of the Red Scare and granted it legitimacy given that the general public was socialized to trust gov bureaus & their info collection but would also never get to see the info derived.
Led to an economy of detectives, doxxing, and lawyers advising public apologies and career salvations.

Communist party publicly imploded. Labor movement of the 30s & early 40s was vibrant but retracted into brittle sectarianism often more interested in punishing its own members than finding new ones. Adherence to doctrine and maintaining purity became central. Stalin gave incoherent and often opposing orders and infighting on the left took over becoming a caricature of itself from within while simultaneously being torn apart from the outside.

Eisenhower's strategy of institutionalizing anti-communist sentiment while taking on McCarthy "By taking responsibility for the red scare, they (the responsible ones) could deprive the hard right of oxygen." Re-framed the cold war as a long haul rather than urgent front. The author frames this as harm reduction, emphasizing the importance of trust in US institutions and the legacy of paranoia and repression were still dealing with today as regrettable but inevitable aftermath. Idk about this take. What if we didn't have to institutionalize evil to water it down and accept it as good enough or as pragmatic politics, what if we threw it away all together instead?
The legacy of this was the utter demolition of the left in US politics and the re-establishment of moderates as what is seen as the left due to a rightward shift that has lasted until today. This was also the beginning of the end of bi-partisan collaboration in the US and the beginning of the surveillance state we live under today. The ground work for contemporary conspiracy theories was also laid down and shines through in today's right wing calls to drain the swamp and end the deep state.

The Blacklists took longer to go away in part because they were never official lists and instead simply powerful informal taboos, many said they were looking around to peers to see when they would stop using the Blacklists and because everyone was watching each other and cautiously hedging their bets it took longer than it should have to thaw.

The US communist party largely crumbled by the mid-late 50s not only from persecution by the US gov but also internal fighting and neglect from Moscow, Stalin dying and proving to be a dictator, and faltering optimism in the global project of socialism. Kind of confused why they had to lean so heavily on Moscow when they could've been plugged into grassroots efforts to make local workers lives better in tangible ways and build a larger movement from the ground up rather than be disenheartened by failures abroad.

McCarthyism grew stronger after his death in some ways, he gave the far right a taste of power they wouldn't forget even as he got side lined it only proved further the corruption and conspiracy in their eyes and he became a martyr to their cause while establishment politicians decided to believe far right populism would simply die with the man despite strong evidence to the contrary.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting look at the Red Scare and its parallels to today's political landscape - I just wish I had felt more engaged while reading it

This book documents the 'Red Scare,' an era of American history in the 1950s after WWII when the country was gripped with fears of communist espionage and fifth columnists. It discusses the rise and fall of McCarthyism and various historical figures associated with it. I found the content very interesting, but also found my attention wandering a lot while reading. That could definitely just be a me problem, though, so I would still recommend this to anyone interested in this concept!

In the 1930s, there was social progress for women and minority groups. Under Roosevelt and his New Deal, there were various relief programs designed to help people and reinvigorate the economy following the Great Depression. However, this was followed by a conservative backlash after World War II, where the New Deal was seen as an example of Communism creeping into the government's policies. The Cold War combined with high-profile trials of suspected spies ushered in a time of intense paranoia. Risen stresses that there was this underlying conspiratorial fear that some anti-American elite secretly running the country. These included anyone with ties to the Communist Party or Soviet Union and anyone associated with it by popular imagination, such as Jews, LGBTQ+ people, civil rights activists, people in labor unions and others. The far right used this war-time hysteria to paint the political left broadly as a national security threat. People with even somewhat left-leaning views could be brought before a court, sometimes just based on rumors that they might have associated with the Communists sometime in the past. This was an era of loyalty oaths, censorship of books and education curriculums, jobs lost on suspicion of Communist sympathies and harsh punishments. I found it really interesting to see parallels in today's politics, like a trend toward conservative backlash and censorship. Sadly, I also see similarity in the way we tend to paint people with a very broad brush. Yes, there were a few convicted spies; a small number may have been Jewish, Black, gay, etc. but this was used to promote antisemitic/racist/homophobic ideas by the right and blind defense of them on the left. These trials became, according to Risen, political litmus tests.

I also notice parallels in Risen's description of McCarthy and the rabid following he amassed to (in my opinion) the appeal of President Trump.

Even Americans who detested his politics recognized in him a culture that validated the unthrottled American, back from the war and determined to live life on his own terms. He worked hard—in a sense, he never stopped working, even when he was three drinks in by lunch. He said what was on his mind. He slapped backs and gladded hands. He was the cartoonish version of the postwar American man, a real-life predecessor to Ralph Kramden and Archie Bunker. He gambled, he drank incessantly he harassed women..."Risen, pg. 260

This is definitely a thought-provoking read and an important era of American history to learn about.


Dec 2025 - Great premise and started out really interesting, but found myself losing interest as it went on. Maybe I will try again in the future.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️

If you have lived through a few decades, then you know that for some reason, the past repeats itself. During the 1940s and 1950s, at the beginning of the Cold War, America became a country scared of communism. WWII had just ended, and the USSR (as Russia was known then) was taking over Eastern Europe, the Keoran War had started, and there was a move to take over China, it was the perfect storm for the Red Scare. The government got a little carried away, I think.

Clay Risen has written a good book about that whole time. I did feel the book got bogged down a little with so much information being thrown at me. It drugged a little bit because of that. Overall, I think if you are interested in that time period or want to see some parallels between now and then with our political parties, it would be worth your time to read.

Tentative Publication Date March 18, 2025

Thanks to Netgalley, Scriber, and Risen for the E-ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

😊 Happy Reading 😊

#Netgalley #Scribner #ClayRisen #RedScare #ARC #Nonfiction #Read2025 #Alphabetchallenge2025 (R)

[Craigtator · Rating 4 out of 5]

A saga about the paranoia of Americans and the grifters that profit off of them.