Faculty Bibliography

Reforging the White Republic: Race, Religion and American Nationalism, 1865-1898 by Edward J. Blum, Working Toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Became White--The Strange Journey From Ellis Island to the Suburbs by David R. Roediger, and When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold Story of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America by Ira Katznelson are reviewed

David Oshinsky reviews "Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin."

Penetrating Hollywood, the Radoshes note, was a major Communist goal. Lenin himself had described the motion picture as the ideal outlet for political propaganda, and movies were now the leading form of popular culture in the United States. Those who worked in the stratified, dictatorial world of the Hollywood studios were seen as ideal recruits for the movement -- powerless folk keenly aware of the lopsided distribution of wealth. What the American Communist Party offered was a sense of shared values, a whiff of equality in a wildly unequal town. "I found myself collecting Party dues from Dalton Trumbo and other famous writers," a fellow member noted. "Dalton was making five thousand dollars a week but we were comrades.... I was welcome at the 'red table' at MGM where all the left-wingers ate." There was more to this, however, than the generosity of gullible celebrities. Indeed, the Radoshes demolish the portrait of Hollywood as a place where Reds were akin to fuzzy idealists. During World War II, they note, Communists exerted strong influence over the Screen Writers Guild, the Screen Actors Guild and the back-lot production unions. Led by screenwriter John Howard Lawson, its cultural enforcer, the party rode herd on its legions, deciding, for example, that [Budd Schulberg]'s classic novel, "What Makes Sammy Run?," was an affront to the working class or that an essay by [Albert Maltz] recommending greater artistic freedom for Communist writers was an offense against Stalin himself. A defiant Schulberg decided to quit the party; a penitent Maltz issued one of the most obsequious public retractions on record. The payback came in 1947, when the House Un-American Activities Committee, taking full advantage of early Cold War tensions, began its circus-like probe of communism in Hollywood. The Radoshes portray HUAC as a pack of bigots and retrogrades looking to smear the legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt and to earn publicity for themselves. What makes "Red Star Over Hollywood" stand out from most other accounts, however, is its contention that those who refused to testify before HUAC -- the so-called Hollywood Ten, which included Maltz, Lardner, Trumbo, Edward Dmytryk and several other distinguished figures -- sealed their own fate and helped bring on the blacklist. The book argues that they did this by shamelessly portraying themselves as wounded patriots and champions of free speech when others considered them hard-line Stalinists who were following every twist and turn of the ever-changing communist line

[Jonas Salk] favored a killed-virus vaccine, while [Albert Sabin] and most other researchers favored a live-virus version, which produced stronger immunity. But Salk's was safer and could be developed more quickly, giving it an edge in the vaccine competition. In 1949, in the prime of her career, the 38-year-old Morgan left Johns Hopkins to marry and become a homemaker. Had she remained, it's quite possible she would have beaten Jonas Salk to the killed-virus polio vaccine. The next step involved the testing of children, one she never got to take. In remembering the brilliance of Jonas Salk this week, it is wise to recall the help he received -- not the least from Morgan and [Dorothy Horstmann] -- in following his path to conquering polio

[Ted Morgan] finds much to admire about the young Senator [Joe McCarthy], including compassion and generosity. But as McCarthy rose in politics, he abandoned whatever scruples he may have had and gave in to expediency, Morgan writes, continuing, He was like a character in a medieval morality play, fought over by an angel and a devil. The devil won. Morgan's narrative provides ample evidence of the damage done to individuals and institutions by McCarthy. But Morgan is right, I think, to portray the senator and the Communist Party as equal partners in the soiling of American politics. By 1946 the worst was over. A host of factors, including the defection of top U.S. agents and the FBI's successful infiltration of the Communist Party, severely weakened Soviet espionage abilities inside the United States. The wartime secrets had been stolen, Morgan writes, but the networks had been dismantled. As the Communist problem faded, the Communist issue took its place. The Cold War was now in full swing. Soviet takeovers in Eastern Europe, the fall of China to communism, the news that Russia had tested an atomic bomb, all sent shock waves through the United States

Most of Mr. [Ted Morgan]'s book covers what historians have called 'the Communist problem' and 'the Communist issue.' The former involved the penetration of the federal government by Communist agents during the New Deal era and World War II, a time when security measures ranged from lax to nonexistent. As Mr. Morgan demonstrates, American Communists were able to construct spy networks in the State Department, the Treasury Department and the Manhattan Project with remarkable ease. 'Soviet espionage harvested a full crop of spies,' he writes, including Alger Hiss, Julius Rosenberg and Harry Dexter White. Mr. Morgan finds much to admire about the young 'Senator [Joe McCarthy],' including compassion and generosity. But as McCarthy 'rose in politics, he abandoned whatever scruples he may have had and gave in to expediency,' Mr. Morgan writes, continuing, 'He was like a character in a medieval morality play, fought over by an angel and a devil.' The devil won. Mr. Morgan's narrative provides ample evidence of the damage done to individuals and institutions by McCarthy and his allies. But Mr. Morgan is right, I think, to portray the senator and the Communist Party as equal partners in the soiling of American politics, with 'both employing falsehood and deceit, both using heated rhetoric and hidden informants, and both making unfounded charges against their government'.

Watergate was a vivid human drama with stunning plot turns and priceless characters. There was Tony Ulasewicz, straight from a Damon Runyon novel, who was a bagman for the [Richard M. Nixon] campaign; John J. Sirica, the tough-as-nails federal judge who got the Watergate burglars to talk; Alexander P. Butterfield, the perplexed White House aide who dropped the bombshell about the taping system in the Oval Office; and Barbara Jordan, the young congresswoman from Texas, whose eloquence regarding the Constitution and Nixon's abuse of it seemed to restore the nation's faith in politics. Why didn't Nixon destroy the taped Oval Office conversations that led directly to his downfall? Mr. [Keith W. Olson] supports the conventional -- and I think, correct -- view that the president wanted the tapes to help him write his memoirs and to protect his legacy against future Nixon-hating historians. He presumably also believed that his claim of executive privilege would shield him from having to release the tapes. When that theory proved wrong, it was too late to destroy them without creating ''an indelible impression of guilt.'' In fact, it was both. To see Richard Nixon full blown shouldn't obscure the dangerous abuses of executive power by those who came before him. But let's face it: Nixon was unique. A look back at his career shows a relish for lying and lawbreaking, a fear and hatred of normal opposition and a cynicism about the political process that is unrivaled in our history. That is what makes the real Nixon so fascinating and so sorely missed in this book

David M. Oshinsky reviews the book "A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America" by Lizabeth Cohen

Watergate was a vivid human drama with stunning plot turns and priceless characters. There was Tony Ulasewicz, straight from a Damon Runyon novel, who was a bagman for the [Richard Nixon] campaign; John Sirica, the tough federal judge who got the Watergate burglars to talk; Alexander Butterfield, the perplexed White House aide who dropped the bombshell about the taping system in the Oval Office, and Barbara Jordan, the young congresswoman from Texas, whose eloquence regarding the Constitution and Nixon's abuse of it seemed to restore the nation's faith in politics. In fact, it was both. To see Richard Nixon full blown shouldn't obscure the dangerous abuses of executive power by those who came before him. But let's face it: Nixon was unique. A look back at his career shows a relish for lying and lawbreaking, a fear and hatred of normal opposition and a cynicism about the political process that is unrivaled in our history. That is what makes the real Nixon so fascinating and so sorely missed in this book. [David M. Oshinsky] is the Littlefield professor of history at the University of Texas.