Posted on 09/04/2005 6:35:56 PM PDT by Timmy
A friend of my daughter is a freshman at Mizzou. She thought she had signed up for a literature class, but the lefty professor has turned it into a 1950's history class, complete with the predictable attacks on conservatives over HUAC, McCarthy, Korean War, H-bomb (Oppenheimer vs. Teller), Hollywood "blacklist," big business (McDonalds), suburbia, etc.
She has asked me to recommend some books that provide a conservative perspective on that time period. I have already recommended Treason (Coulter) for the section on McCarthy. I would appreciate any suggestions my Freeper friends may have. Remember, this is on her own time and she will only be able to read a reasonable amount. Thanks ahead of time.
ping
"The Conscience of a Conservative" by Barry Goldwater
Or any issue of National Review, would do the trick.
F.A. Hayek's "The Road To Serfdom" was published in 1944, but might be worth checking out.
If those assholes are knocking suburbia it was because it was basically a paradise with few problems requiring socialist remedies.
Dear heavens, no!
The simple fact of the matter is that Coulter is an intellectual flash-bang - all noise, and no substance. Strip away her vitriol, and you see that she is nothing more than a demogogue shilling for the Republican Nat'l Committee.
There's probably a pretty good book on McCarthy out there, but Coulter is certainly not it. Your daughter, if she is going to be engaging the professor, must interact with serious reference materials - and even primary sources - and not right-wing shills like Coulter, Hannity, or Limbaugh. If she does that - basing her arguments on works by respected historians and primary source documents - the professor will be more likely to listen than if she cites Treason or How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must).
Sheesh!!! The "H" in HUAC stands for "House," as in House of Representatives. Joe McCarthy was a Senator. He was also rather slimey, even if he was right to be concerned about Communists in Government.
Also:
"Red Star over Hollywood," "Commies," and "The Rosenberg File" by Ronald Radosh.
Books by Alexander Solshenitzyn about the gulag or life under the Soviet commies.
Books about The Venona papers (detailing all the commies who had infiltrated our government at the highest levels).
Not to beat my own drum, but I think our chapter on the 1950s is one of the most original and insightful treatments of this decade I've seen. I'm surprised more reviewers don't mention it, but they are too busy fighting with us over "church and state." The book is "A Patriot's History of the United States."
That's not a horrible idea, but one's research mustn't stop there. Indeed, use the footnotes from her professor's materials too.
Base everything on primary source materials and writers contemporary to the McCarthy era.
My final comment would be that we as conservatives should not feel bound to defend the excesses of McCarthy. Were there Communists in the State Dept.? Probably. But McCarthy went well too far. Even Eisenhower (no Communist he) loathed McCarthy.
That's the book I was going to recommend. Or, you could cite "Up from Liberalism" by the same author.
Regards,
TS
"The Secret World of American Communism"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0300068557/qid=1125886564/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-9024103-5061623?v=glance&s=books
"The Soviet World of American Communism"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0300071507/ref=pd_sim_3/002-9024103-5061623?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance
"McCarthy and His Enemies: The Record and Its Meaning"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0895264722/qid=1125886871/sr=1-29/ref=sr_1_29/002-9024103-5061623?v=glance&s=books
"From Moss to Lattimore, the dramatis personae and the evidence and the words of McCarthy's critics are laid before us. The conclusions are left to the reader; but the authors make a central point: nothing, EVER, said by McCarthy was as outrageous as those yawped by his critics."
95% of what you think you know about McCarthy is a myth.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.