Explore the history and current relevance of the mid-20th century Red Scare. Learn about this dark period, which particularly affected civil rights activists, teachers, Hollywood stars, and DC’s federal workers, including many Jewish figures. Author and New York Times reporter Clay Risen will be in conversation with Judge David Tatel.
Presented in partnership with the Haberman Institute for Jewish Studies.
ABOUT THE BOOK: Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America by Clay Risen
From an award-winning historian and New York Times reporter comes the timely story about McCarthyism that both “lays out the many mechanisms of repression that made the Red Scare possible…[and] describes how something that once seemed so terrifying and interminable did, in fact, come to an end” (The New Yorker)—based in part on newly declassified sources.
Now, for the first time in a generation, Clay Risen delivers a narrative history of the anti-Communist witch hunt that gripped America in the decade following World War II. This period, known as the Red Scare, was an outgrowth of the conflict between social conservatives and New Deal progressives, and the terrifying onset of the Cold War. Marked by an unprecedented degree of political hysteria, this was a defining moment in American history, completely unlike any that preceded it. Drawing upon newly declassified documents and with “scenes are so vivid that you can almost feel yourself sweating along with the witnesses” (The New York Times Book Review), journalist Clay Risen recounts how politicians like Joseph McCarthy, with the help of an extended network of other government officials and organizations, systematically ruined thousands of lives in their deluded pursuit of alleged Communist conspiracies.
“Thorough, impassioned...detailed, [and] tension-packed” (Los Angeles Times), Red Scare reveals an all-too-familiar pattern of illiberal conspiracy-mongering and political and cultural backlash that speaks directly to the antagonism and divisiveness of our contemporary moment.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Clay Risen is a reporter with The New York Times and the author, most recently, of "Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism and the Making of Modern America," which The Chicago Tribune named one of the ten best books of 2025. He is the author of several previous books on American history, including "The Crowded Hour: Theodore Roosevelt, the Rough Riders and the Dawn of the American Century," "The Bill of the Century: The Epic Battle for the Civil Rights Act," and "A Nation on Fire: America in the Wake of the King Assassination." He lives in Brooklyn.
Judge David Tatel served on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1994 to 2024, succeeding future Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. After graduating from the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago Law School, he served as the founding director of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and then director of the National Lawyers Committee. He headed the Office for Civil Rights of the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare during the Carter administration and then founded and led the education practice at Hogan Lovells, where he is now Senior Counsel. Judge Tatel, along with Dr. David Baltimore, co-chaired the committee on Science, Technology and Law from 2016 to 2023. He also chaired the boards of The Spencer Foundation and The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Judge Tatel is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Judge Tatel is the author of Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice, (Little Brown, 2024).
Image Credit: Promotional photos provided courtesy of the speakers.
