pdsouza's review against another edition
3.0
A thoroughly detailed and insightful view of the influence of communists on America, starting with 1919 to the present day. The author makes a case that McCarthyism existed long before Joe McCarthy, he merely took red-hunting to an extreme form while showing no regard whatsoever for anyone who remotely got in his way. Against America's imaginary foes McCarthy launched an all-out war until he disgraced himself and, eventually, died a bitter man.
Ted Morgan inadvertently illustrates the close parallel between communists of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s and today's liberal Democrats: they both thrive on cause-based politics, fracture society to create and separate victims (poor, factory workers, women, blacks, students, et al.) from the rest of society and then speak "truth to power" on their behalf. They organized unions and front organizations that ostensibly served the needy. They even called themselves Progressives.
Morgan's bias against conservatives becomes apparent in the epilogue of his 614-page tome. A gratuitous reference to Dick Cheney supporting Oliver North, for example, scarcely masks his effort to impute guilt by association. On the other hand, a high-minded criticism of President Bush by Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia makes no mention of Byrd's membership in the Ku Klux Klan, and organization singled out for criticism earlier in the book.
All in all, it is a very informative read. While you will leave with no better an impression of McCarthy, you will likely think much less of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Ted Morgan inadvertently illustrates the close parallel between communists of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s and today's liberal Democrats: they both thrive on cause-based politics, fracture society to create and separate victims (poor, factory workers, women, blacks, students, et al.) from the rest of society and then speak "truth to power" on their behalf. They organized unions and front organizations that ostensibly served the needy. They even called themselves Progressives.
Morgan's bias against conservatives becomes apparent in the epilogue of his 614-page tome. A gratuitous reference to Dick Cheney supporting Oliver North, for example, scarcely masks his effort to impute guilt by association. On the other hand, a high-minded criticism of President Bush by Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia makes no mention of Byrd's membership in the Ku Klux Klan, and organization singled out for criticism earlier in the book.
All in all, it is a very informative read. While you will leave with no better an impression of McCarthy, you will likely think much less of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.
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