Blacklisted by History
The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight against America's Enemies
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- نقد و بررسی
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نقد و بررسی
The time is ripe for a reassessment of Joseph McCarthy. The opening of Soviet archives and the more general acceptance that Soviet agents were active in the United States during the Cold War have set the stage. Unfortunately, this is not the book. Evans limits himself almost entirely to the information available to McCarthy and, in defending the Senator, confuses (as McCarthy did) leftism with disloyalty and embraces (as McCarthy did) guilt by association alone. Tom Weiner does a clear and professional job of presenting the voluminous lists of names, dates, and assertions that Evans offers. While this book certainly has value for a conspiracy theorist with a highlighter and endless Post-it Notes, it is almost incomprehensible to the casual listener. F.C. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
September 17, 2007
Evans's lively book seeks, first, to demonstrate that Communists worked, often successfully, to undermine American security during the Cold War. It tries, second, to defend Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the egregious scourge of American Communists and fellow travelers, against those who, in Evans's (The Theme Is Freedom
) view, have unjustly ruined his reputation. On the first point, save for some new details, Evans, a contributing editor to Human Events
, treads worn ground. Most scholars, having also used Soviet archives, concede his position and argue now only over secondary matters, like the guilt of Alger Hiss. On the second point, Evans has a tougher case, which he seeks to make as a defense attorney would: by conceding nothing to McCarthy's detractors. Evans is also given to conspiracy thinking—an approach that, by its nature, yields claims that can neither be confirmed nor falsified. Defense attorneys and debaters like Evans follow different rules than historians—they try to score points, not to advance knowledge. Evans is good at the former, his propulsive style carrying much of the argument's burden. But the history Evans relates is already largely known, if not fully accepted.. 20 illus.
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