Cover image of "Red Scare," a book about anti-Communist hysteria

In high school civics classes or college courses in political science, many of us in the United States have learned a little about the Red Scare of the 1940s and 50s. A few keywords surface in memory. The Army-McCarthy hearings. HUAC. The Hollywood Blacklist. Richard Nixon’s smear tactics. Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn and Joseph Welch. Perhaps others. But few of us can merge these scattered elements of the Red Scare into a meaningful and comprehensive account. That’s the task journalist Clay Risen takes on in his deeply researched—and deeply troubling—new book, Red Scare. And in doing so he reveals how the pieces fit together into a much larger picture—how anti-Communist hysteria grabbed hold of the public imagination and upended lives throughout American society. It’s a shocking story.

The Red Scare set the tone for Right-Wing politics for decades to come

For many historians, the events of the period 1947 to 1954 were the Second Red Scare. World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution triggered a similar dramatic overreaction by the Administration of Woodrow Wilson. Then, Democrats curtailed civil liberties in a frenzied campaign from 1917 to 1920 to eliminate the threat of Communists and bomb-throwing anarchists from American society.

Early in Red Scare, Risen reprises these events and scans the history of the Communist Party of the USA as it rose to its peak of influence in the Great Depression of the 1930s. There’s little of interest here to hold the attention of anyone familiar with the history of the period. But he comes into his own once the fallout of World War II laid the groundwork for the Cold War. In granular detail, he explains how the Cold War helped fan the flames of the anti-Communist frenzy that first took hold in conservative Republican circles and then infected the nation as a whole.

Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America by Clay Risen (2025) 471 pages ★★★★★

Photo of nine of the Hollywood Ten, emblems of the Red Scare, key players in this book about anti-Communist hysteria
Nine of the Hollywood Ten, film industry screenwriters, producers, and directors who refused to answer the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC). They declined to say whether they were or ever had been members of the Communist Party or to name others who might be members. They were all convicted of contempt of Congress and jailed for brief periods after conviction at a trial conducted from 1948 to 1950. Image: The Hollywood Reporter

A terrific historical account, less incisive analysis

Risen is brilliant at recounting this history. Much of what he writes is based on newly declassified government documents and other fresh sources. He cites innumerable unfamiliar details, and offers fascinating cameo portraits of all the key players in the Red Scare. Once his story moves to the closing days of the Second World War, its momentum builds. It’s endlessly fascinating. But he makes a weak case for the central role the Red Scare has played in setting the stage for Donald Trump and the MAGA movement.

Certainly, anti-Communism was a central preoccupation on the Right for decades after the war. And no doubt those who labored under the delusion that the tiny remnants of the Communist Party represented a threat to American democracy continued to play a major role in Republican politics. But it could just as easily be said that the John Birch Society, the Powell Memo, and other elements played equally influential roles in setting the tone for today’s Right Wing. Others, including historians Kathryn S. Olmsted and Matthew Dallek, have done so.

About the author

Photo of Clay Risen, author of this book about anti-Communist hysteria
Clay Risen. Image: Kate Milford

Clay Risen describes himself on his website as “a reporter and editor at The New York Times.” He has written several well-received nonfiction books, including several on the subject of whiskey, about which he is an authority. “A graduate of the Georgetown School of Foreign Service and the University of Chicago, Risen grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. He now lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and two children.” Risen was born in 1976.

For another perspective on the antecedents of today’s so-called “conservatives,” see: Right Out of California: The 1930s and the Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism by Kathryn S. Olmsted (How today’s conservatism grew in the cotton fields of California). And for yet a different take on the origins of today’s Right-Wing politics, see Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right by Matthew Dallek (The roots of today’s Right-Wing extremism).

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