During the early years of the Cold War, the anticommunist witch hunt that we now call McCarthyism swept through American society. As we will discover, McCarthyism was much more than the career of the blustering senator from Wisconsin who gave it a name. It was the most widespread and longest-lasting episode of political repression in American history. Dozens of men and women went to prison, thousands lost their jobs, and untold numbers of others saw...

The McCarthy Era was a bad time for freedom in America. Encompassing far more than the brief career of Senator Joseph McCarthy, it was the most widespread episode of political repression in the history of the United States. In the name of national security, most Americans - liberal and conservative alike - supported the anticommunist crusade that ruined so many careers, marriages, even lives. However, despite the unfairness of their methods, the nation's...