The Torment of Secrecy: The Background and Consequences of American Secruity Policies

by Edward Shils

Edward Shils's The Torment of Secrecy is one of the few minor classics to emerge from the cold war years of anticommunism and McCarthyism in the United States. Mr. Shils's "torment" is not only that of the individual caught up in loyalty and security procedures; it is also the torment of the accuser and judge. This essay in sociological analysis and political philosophy considers the cold war preoccupation with espionage, sabotage, and subversion at home, assessing the magnitude of such threats and contrasting it to the agitation—by lawmakers, investigators, and administrators—so wildly directed against the "enemy." Mr. Shils's examination of a recurring American characteristic is as timely as ever. "Brief...lucid... brilliant."—American Political Science Review. "A fine, sophisticated analysis of American social metabolism."—New Republic. "An excitingly lucid and intelligent work on a subject of staggering importance...the social preconditions of political democracy."—Social Forces.

264 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 1996

Reviews

[Sophie Wieland · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book, while it may have been an interesting read when it was published, has not aged well. It is not specific enough to McCarthyism to be read as a historical narrative, yet it is also not a general enough treatise on society and pluralism to be read and applied to today's society. There are a couple of interesting points in the book, but you have to put up with a lot to discover them.