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Book

Red Scare

Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America
  • Clay Risen
2025
Scribner

Associated Ideas, People, and Places

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Featured Excerpts

  • H.A. Smith is sworn in as a first witness at a HUAC hearing.
    Book Review

    American Hysteria

    Red Scare can be read as solid history of the years it depicts—and chilling prophecy of the years to come.
    by Maurice Isserman via Democracy Journal on June 18, 2025
  • Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn.
    Q&A

    Blacklists and Civil Liberties

    On the Second Red Scare and the lessons that it can provide for us today.
    by Clay Risen, Miguel Petrosky via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on May 13, 2025
  • Senator Joseph McCarthy speaking into microphones.
    Q&A

    Newly Declassified Documents Reveal the Untold Stories of the Red Scare

    In his latest book, journalist and historian Clay Risen explores how the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy upended the nation.
    by Sara Georgini, Clay Risen via Smithsonian on April 1, 2025
  • Black and white Washington DC.
    Book Excerpt

    Between Existential Fear and Isolationist Exhaustion: The United States on the Eve of the Cold War

    Dean Acheson, President Truman’s prim, patrician undersecretary of state, was sitting in his office on February 21, 1947, when he received a visitor.
    by Clay Risen via Literary Hub on March 21, 2025
  • Book Review

    How the Red Scare Reshaped American Politics

    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?
    by Beverly Gage via The New Yorker on March 10, 2025
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