Naming Names

Winner of the National Book Award: The definitive history of Joe McCarthy, the Hollywood blacklist, and HUAC from a longtime editor of The Nation and former Chair of the Columbia Journalism Review . Drawing on interviews with over one hundred and fifty people who were called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee-including Elia Kazan, Ring Lardner Jr., and Arthur Miller-award-winning author Victor S. Navasky reveals how and why the blacklists were so effective and delves into the tragic and far-reaching consequences of Joseph McCarthy's witch hunts. A compassionate, insightful, and even-handed examination of one of our country's darkest hours, Naming Namesis at once a morality play and a fascinating window onto a searing moment in American cultural and political history-one that feels all too familiar in the present day.

"The moral issues raised by the Hollywood blacklist remain fearfully complex, and Victor Navasky confronts them with almost exquisite precision." - The New York Times

"[Navasky] establishes himself as that rare historian who can, like a novelist, illuminate the boundaries where power and conscience meet." - Time

"Remarkable . . . Navasky appears in these pages as a compassionate, if uncompromising, man . . . Thoughtful, instructive, and courageous." - Newsweek

"A miracle of vividly responsible scholarship." -Kurt Vonnegut