It's painfully easy to see the contours of our current divides in Schrecker's story, with no sign of their improving.Įllen Schrecker’s synthesis of scholarship on McCarthyism, Many are the Crimes, expands on the methods and costs of suppressing leftist politics in the early Cold War. Schrecker recounts familiar events and traumas while stressing their long-term impacts: the McCarthy era, far from a fleeting fit of hysteria, virtually destroyed American progressivism while rendering all ancillary causes (from Civil Rights and labor issues to healthcare reforms) eternally suspect, turning the Democratic Party stubbornly centrist.and how the Red Scare emboldened America's right to see Democrats not merely as misguided rivals, but illegitimate, un-American traitors. Then the emergence of a hostile, empowered post-WWII USSR, the ascension of the staunchly anti-Communist Harry Truman to power and a general American revulsion against all things Red, Pink or remotely unorthodox destroyed this alliance. Unlike other Red Scare historians, she's not afraid to show the close, often embarrassingly naive cooperation of New Deal liberals and more extreme progressives under Franklin Roosevelt, showing how a socialist-Democrat alliance managed to serve both groups' interest for a brief period.

Schrecker analyses the Red Scare not as an aberration but a long-standing tradition in American politics, dating back to the turn of the century.

Another sociocultural look at the McCarthy era, focusing more on its impact on America than its political drama.

Many Are the Crimes by Ellen Schrecker