Book Critique The Age of McCarthyism

Throughout my years as a student I have taken many different types of American histories, studying many different eras. Out of all of my years of repetitive studying of American history I finally received the chance to learn about something in American history that was foreign to me. For my History 1302 class, I was assigned to read The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents (Bedford Books of St. Martin Press, 1994) written by Ellen Schrecker. The purpose of this paper is to accurately asses this literary work based on my personal opinion and proven (documented) facts. The thesis of the literary work The Age of McCarthyism is to provide the reader with a thorough description of an era of American history, after World War II known as The McCarthy Era.

Ellen Scherecker explains that the McCarthy era deals with a time period in American history that began, in the late 1940ˇs into the 1950ˇ

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Although each incident in the book was well documented I can not honestly say that I believe that everything that I have read is completely true. Schrecker makes it clear that the era got itˇs unusual name from a senator by the name of Joseph McCarthy. 113)

I feel the authorˇs work should undoubtedly be accepted as a valid and credible work due to the fact that the author used more than an adequate number of historical documents to support each fact stated in the novel. For the duration of the crusades it was the anti- communist main goal was to destroy the communist by making them public enemy number one. ¨In this process the political undesirables were first identified by one agency and then fired by another.

During this time period America felt that it was facing a threat of communist uprising. From reading this book as well as my history text book I understand as well as believe that there were communist during this time period, but I do not feel that their threat to American society was as great as it was made out to be. Schrecker constantly argues her point that Joseph McCarthy was not main enforcer during the movement but that he only demonstrated the attitude that triumphed during this age. I feel that the communist crusades were unfair and silly due to the fact that a lot of innocent people were falsely accused. 109) and the list goes on of many valid sources that Ms.

The Age of McCarthyism is a very informative and well-composed book.

Approximate Word count = 670
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

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