A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy

Description

Acclaimed historian David Oshinsky's chronicling of the life of Senator Joe McCarthy has been called both "nuanced" and "masterful." In this new paperback edition Oshinsky presents us with a work heralded as the finest account available of Joe McCarthy's colorful career. With a storyteller's eye for the dramatic and presentation of fact, and insightful interpretation of human complexity, Oshinsky uncovers the layers of myth to show the true McCarthy. His book reveals the senator from his humble beginnings as a hardworking Irish farmer's son in Wisconsin to his glory days as the architect of America's Cold War crusade against domestic subversion; a man whose advice if heeded, some believe, might have halted the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia and beyond. A Conspiracy So Immense reveals the internal and external forces that launched McCarthy on this political career, carried him to national prominence, and finally triggered his decline and fall. More than the life of an intensly- even pathologically- ambitious man however, this book is a fascinating portrait of America in the grip of Cold War fear, anger, suspician, and betrayal. Complete with a new Foreword, A Conspiracy So Immense will continue to keep in the spotlight this historical figure-a man who worked so hard to prosecute "criminals" whose ideals work against that of his- for America. Contents Acknowledgments 1. Beginnings 2. G. I. Judge 3. Gunning for the Senate 4. The Pepsi-Cola Kid 5. Rock Bottom 6. The Red Bogey in America, 1917-1950 7. Wheeling 8. Battle of the Billygoats 9. Stand or Fall 10. The Lattimore Connection 11. Declaration of Conscience 12. The Fourth Estate 13. An Infamy So Black ...” 14. “Slimy Creatures” 15. Tydings’s Revenge 16. Ike 17. Gearing for Battle 18. Voices Within the Voice 19. Of Diplomats and Greek Ships 20. Friends and Enemies 21. A Discouraging Summer 22. The Monmouth Hearings 23. White House Blues 24. Who Promoted Peress? 25. The Chicken Luncheon 26. “The Fault, Dear Brutus” 27. Setting the Ground Rules 28. The Hearings Begin 29. Executive Privilege 30. The Eleven Memoranda 31. “So Reckless, So Cruel” 32. Censure 33. Final Years Notes Selective Bibliography Index