In Denial: Historians, Communism, and Espionage
John Haynes
(Author)
Harvey Klehr
(Author)
Description
Beginning in the late 1960s, John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr say, the study of communism in America was taken over by "revisionists" who have attempted to portray the U.S. as the aggressor in the Cold War and saw suspicion about the American Communist Party (CPUSA) as baseless "paranoia." In this intriguing book, they show how, years after the death of communism, the leading historical journals and many prominent historians continue to teach that America's rejection of the Party was a tragic error, that American Communists were actually unsung heroes working for democratic ideals, and that those anti-Communist liberals and conservatives who drove the CPUSA to the margins of American politics in the 1950s were malicious figures deserving condemnation. The focus of "In Denial" is what the authors call "lying about spying." Haynes and Klehr examine the ways in which revisionist scholars have ignored or distorted new evidence from recently-opened Russian archives about espionage links between Moscow and the CPUSA. They analyze the mythology that continues to suggest, against all evidence, that Alger Hiss, Julius Rosenberg, Harry Dexter White, Lauchlin Currie, and others who betrayed the United States were more sinned against than sinning. They set the record straight about the spies among us. Haynes and Klehr were the first U.S. historians who used the newly opened archives of the former Soviet Union to examine the history of American communism. "In Denial" is the record of what they discovered there. They show that while the international communist movement may be dead, conflict over the meaning of the communist experience in America is still very much with us.
Product Details
Price
$16.95
$15.76
Publisher
Encounter Books
Publish Date
October 01, 2005
Pages
316
Dimensions
6.34 X 9.24 X 0.94 inches | 1.08 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9781594030888
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Become an affiliateAbout the Author
John Haynes' previous book Taking the Stage with an introduction by Lindsay Anderson has become a classic of theatre photography. He was privileged to work alongside Samuel Beckett when he was directing his plays at the Royal Court Theatre in the seventies and John was photographer in residence. Haynes continues to work with the leading directors and actors of British contemporary theatre.
Harvey Klehr is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Politics and History at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. He received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is the author of five books, Communist Cadre: The Social Background of the American Communist Party Elite (1978); The Heyday of American Communism: The Depression Decade (1984); Biographical Dictionary of the American Left (1986); Far Left of Center: The American Radical Left Today (1988); The Amerasia Spy Case: Prelude to McCarthyism (1996). He was honored with the Emory Williams Distinguished Teaching Award for Emory College in 1983.