If we want to understand how we arrived in this authoritarian moment in 2025, we need to understand one of the central pathways that brought us here: McCarthyism. In his firsthand account of the 1949 ...

Since Donald Trump retook office on January 20, he’s weaponized the federal government to execute his war on “woke,” targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, LGBTQ+ rights, and higher ...

Clay Risen discusses his new book "Red Scare." The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 was passed amid anti-communist fears during the early Cold War. That period of history is the focus of the ...

Fascism wasn’t always a bad word in the U.S. In the 1940s and 1950s, one of the charges levied by the House Un-American Activities Committee was “premature antifascism.” Largely directed at people who ...

A new book by journalist Clay Risen brings back to life a period of American history after World War II known as the Red Scare. According to Risen, what should've been a counterintelligence effort ...

Early in “Red Scare,” Clay Risen’s thorough, impassioned but even-handed study of Cold War hysteria in the U.S., the author makes a point of explaining what his subject is — and isn’t. “There is a ...

“I was struck this summer when [now Vice President] JD Vance was talking about these Haitian immigrants in Ohio who are supposedly eating pets,” says Nashville native Risen, a historian and editor at ...

Early in “Red Scare,” Clay Risen’s thorough, impassioned but even-handed study of Cold War hysteria in the U.S., the author makes a point of explaining what his subject is — and isn’t. “There is a ...