Manufacturing Hysteria: Modern American History of Scapegoating, Surveillance & Government Secrecy | Political Science Book for Students & Researchers" （注：原标题已是英文，我进行了SEO优化：1）保持核心关键词前置 2）添加了内容分类标识 3）补充了受众群体作为使用场景 4）用"&"替代部分"and"提升可读性 5）将"in Modern America"调整为更符合搜索习惯的语序）
Delivery & Return:Free shipping on all orders over $50
Estimated Delivery:7-15 days international
People:13 people viewing this product right now!
Easy Returns:Enjoy hassle-free returns within 30 days!
Payment:Secure checkout
SKU:92134200
Product Description
A vital, engaging, and sometimes troubling story of modern America’s struggle to live up to its ideals. In this ambitious and wide-ranging history, Jay Feldman takes us from the run-up to World War I and its anti-German hysteria through the September 11 attacks and Arizona’s current anti-immigration movement. What we see is a striking pattern of elected officials and private citizens alike using the American people’s fears and prejudices to isolate minorities (ethnic, racial, political, religious, or sexual), silence dissent, and stem the growth of civil rights and liberties. Whether it’s the post–World War I persecution of radicals; the Depression-era deportations of Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans; the World War II internment of 112,000 ethnic Japanese along with thousands of German and Italian aliens; the Cold War campaigns against Communists, gays, and civil-rights activists; or the Vietnam-era COINTELPRO operations, we see how economic, military, and political crises have been used to curtail the rights of supposedly subversive minorities. Much of the story can be laid at the feet of J. Edgar Hoover, but Feldman goes deeper to show how these tendencies have been part of a continuous vein that runs through American life. Rather than treating this history as a series of discrete moments, Feldman considers the entire programmatic sweep on a scale no one has yet approached. In doing so, he gives us a potent reminder of how, even in America, democracy and civil liberties are never guaranteed.
Customer Reviews
What distinguishes this important book is the balance of thorough research, engaging prose, and the author's refusal to go easy on injustice in any form. Throughout "Manufacturing Hysteria..." Jay Feldman documents the effects of fear-mongering and outright abuses of power on the American temperament and character over, roughly, the past hundred years."One of the most insidious degradations of democracy," Feldman writes, "is the scapegoating of minorities--be they ethnic, racial, religious, political, or sexual--because to deny the civil liberties of any specific group, even in the name of national security, is to take the first step toward curtailing the civil liberties of all." Yet modern American culture and society have been fraught with such "goats": German-Americans during and after the First World War, Japanese-Americans and (to a much lesser extent) Italian-Americans during World War II, immigrants and trade unions during times of economic downturn, peace demonstrators during times of war, and countless others."Manufacturing Hysteria" tells the stories of forgotten victims like German immigrant Robert Paul Prager, who was lynched by an Illinois mob in 1918, but it also offers a close and detailed look at familiar periods when American values and ideals were threatened most by those whose proclaimed purpose was to expose "anti-American" beliefs, behavior, and activities. Of Senator Joseph McCarthy, Feldman reminds readers that, "For all the hundreds of individuals McCarthy accused, he never discovered or exposed a single Communist or any instance of espionage." There's something hauntingly current about the author's view of McCarthy as "a creation of the press; even those reporters who despised McCarthy--and they were by far the majority--lent him credibility by their relentless coverage of his baseless charges and masterful evasions." We need only look back as far as the original field of contenders for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination to see how candidates who spout vague and unfounded accusations of "anti-Americanism" make headlines and are granted free and seemingly endless exposure in liberal and conservative media outlets alike.Other reviewers have termed the book "required reading." I certainly agree with the assessment. It's difficult to imagine a group of readers who would not find something in "Manufacturing Hysteria..." to make them reflect on the fact that, in the author's words, "democracy requires vigilance," and that people much like themselves can easily become "scapegoats" if that vigilance lapses.
