Alger Hiss

On Dec. 2, 1948, evidence stashed in a hollowed-out pumpkin incriminated suspected Soviet spy Alger Hiss and boosted a young Richard Nixon’s political status.

At its height, the political crackdown felt terrifying and all-encompassing. What can we learn from how the movement unfolded—and from how it came to an end?

West understood more clearly than anyone the allure of Communism for educated Westerners.

James Comey’s testimony joins the pantheon of dramatic congressional moments.

Red Scare can be read as solid history of the years it depicts—and chilling prophecy of the years to come.

In his latest book, journalist and historian Clay Risen explores how the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy upended the nation.

The impact can linger not just for years but decades.

Today’s Trumpist radicals are not (small-c) conservatives – but they stand in the continuity of Modern Conservatism’s defining political project.

Reflection on the importance of sex in the spiritual redemption narratives that riveted the American public.

A new biography of Joseph McCarthy does not reckon with the devastating effects of anti-communism.

McCarthy never sent a single “subversive” to jail, but, decades later, the spirit of his conspiracy-mongering endures.

Even knowing every awful thing Richard Nixon would go on to do, you had to respect, as the phrase goes, his hustle.

We owe at least part of the 2008 financial crisis to Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism.

Looking at the reporter’s life through five houses in Baltimore.

President Trump’s criticisms of government workers have something in common with Joe McCarthy’s.