Two leading scholars of the Cold War Red Scare have put together this selection of nearly two dozen documents that illuminate the many strands of the anti-Communist political repression we call McCarthyism. Ellen Schrecker’s short, but comprehensive, overview places those materials within their historical context. Ranging from congressional hearings and FBI reports to oral history interviews and the intercepted telegrams of Soviet espionage agents this popular collection introduces students and ordinary citizens to that world of paranoia and the personal and political damage it caused.

​

Co-editor Phillip Deery is Professor of History and Director of Research at Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia. The author of more than 100 scholarly publications, his most recent books are Fighting Against War: Peace Activism in the Twentieth Century and Red Apple: Communism and McCarthyism in Cold War New York.

​

​

​

Reviews

“A perceptive and provocative introduction to the many forces – institutional, political, ideological – that shaped and sustained the crusade against domestic subversion in America in the 1940s and 1950s.”

― Alan Brinkley, Columbia University

​

“…indispensable for any serious student of one of the most troubling eras in American history. Schrecker’s knowledge of the field is encyclopedic, and the historical insights she shares with her readers are powerful, subtle, and persuasive.”

― Maurice Isserman, Hamilton College

​