Aided by new sources, Clay Risen's 'Red Scare' brings McCarthyism back to life

Conventional accounts of American history tend to focus on the people at the top—presidents, generals, CEOs, and other influential figures and their struggles, ambitions, hopes, and dreams. But what about average people? The ones who had to live with the consequences of elite decisions, and who often struggled in obscurity? In A People’s History of the United States, historian Howard Zinn aims to tell their story, providing a bottom-up view of American history focusing on Indigenous people, Black Americans, women, laborers, and activists.

Our guide outlines Zinn’s interpretation of significant events, themes, and historical trends in American history. Through our commentary, we’ll provide alternative opinions on the motivations behind and consequences of historical events. We’ll also further explain Zinn’s approach to history and provide additional context for his arguments as well as his perspective on events that happened after the book’s publication.

In The Silk Roads, historian Peter Frankopan identifies Central and Western Asia as the crossroads of human civilization, the birthplace of the world’s major religions, the battleground where the great empires of history rose and fell, and the garden from which today’s global economy first sprouted. He argues that understanding the East is crucial to our understanding of the world—particularly for Westerners who have lost this global perspective.

In ancient times, trade routes known as the Silk Roads first brought European merchants to the luxury markets of the East, enabling the flow of both material goods and ideas from East to West. According to Frankopan, the Silk Roads have always been history’s crucial connection point, spreading not just luxury goods like silk and spices, but also technology, religion, languages, cultures, ideologies, and even conflicts and diseases. In this guide, we explore Frankopan’s history of the Silk Roads, while also incorporating insights and feedback from other scholars to supplement his analysis.

According to Gen. H.R. McMaster, the United States views the world through a self-centered lens, assuming that its policy decisions are the main driving force behind global events. Because of this distorted perspective, the US has lost influence on the global stage at a time when authoritarian aggression is on the rise. In Battlegrounds, McMaster, who was US national security adviser in 2017-18, contends that American leaders must learn to see the world through the eyes of the US's adversaries in order to defend against foreign threats and compete in the modern global landscape.

In this guide, we’ll explore McMaster’s criticism of the assumptions driving US foreign policy, his assessment of the threats America faces, and the steps he believes the US must take. We’ll compare McMaster’s views with those of other experts on diplomacy, while placing his assessments in their larger context and updating some of his information based on events since the book’s publication.

Conventional accounts of American history tend to focus on the people at the top—presidents, generals, CEOs, and other influential figures and their struggles, ambitions, hopes, and dreams. But what about average people? The ones who had to live with the consequences of elite decisions, and who often struggled in obscurity? In A People’s History of the United States, historian Howard Zinn aims to tell their story, providing a bottom-up view of American history focusing on Indigenous people, Black Americans, women, laborers, and activists.

Our guide outlines Zinn’s interpretation of significant events, themes, and historical trends in American history. Through our commentary, we’ll provide alternative opinions on the motivations behind and consequences of historical events. We’ll also further explain Zinn’s approach to history and provide additional context for his arguments as well as his perspective on events that happened after the book’s publication.

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein is a study of the history of economic shock therapy, which aims to quickly improve a country’s economy through rapid privatization, deregulation, and severe cuts in government spending. She also describes how it gave rise to the disaster capitalism complex: a privatized system of destruction and rebuilding that funnels billions of dollars into corporate pockets. The book discusses the incredible harm that economic shock therapy and disaster capitalism have caused to millions of people all over the world.

Klein is an award-winning author, filmmaker, and activist. She’s dedicated her life to studying the personal and environmental harms that result from wars and unchecked capitalism.

If you’ve ever noticed that history seems to repeat itself over the course of centuries, you may be wondering what causes that pattern—and how it may play out in the future. In The Fourth Turning, historian William Strauss and consultant Neil Howe explain how Anglo-American history follows a pattern of four 15 to 25-year periods, called Turnings, and how the behaviors of different generations define these Turnings.

In our guide, we’ll explore the authors’ theories on the Four Turnings, as well as the generational archetypes and their respective roles in the Turnings. We’ll also discuss the authors’ descriptions of the past three Turnings and their predictions for the Fourth. Finally, we’ll examine the authors’ theories in the context of history and modern society, as well as how their predictions about the Fourth Turning have played out in the years since the book’s publication in 1997.

Conventional accounts of American history tend to focus on the people at the top—presidents, generals, CEOs, and other influential figures and their struggles, ambitions, hopes, and dreams. But what about average people? The ones who had to live with the consequences of elite decisions, and who often struggled in obscurity? In A People’s History of the United States, historian Howard Zinn aims to tell their story, providing a bottom-up view of American history focusing on Indigenous people, Black Americans, women, laborers, and activists.

Our guide outlines Zinn’s interpretation of significant events, themes, and historical trends in American history. Through our commentary, we’ll provide alternative opinions on the motivations behind and consequences of historical events. We’ll also further explain Zinn’s approach to history and provide additional context for his arguments as well as his perspective on events that happened after the book’s publication.

In this New York Times bestseller, Michelle Alexander argues that the war on drugs has created a new racial caste system, disproportionately punishing black people. A powerfully interlocking system of laws and policies targets black people for drug crime, punishes them more severely than white criminals, and makes life as an ex-felon extremely difficult. The result is effectively racial subjugation and disenfranchisement.

In this summary, you’ll learn how the war on drugs followed a pattern of implementation consistent with slavery and Jim Crow, how financial incentives and legal protection allow selective targeting of black males for drug crimes, and why it’s so difficult for drug convicts to reintegrate into society.

If you’ve ever noticed that history seems to repeat itself over the course of centuries, you may be wondering what causes that pattern—and how it may play out in the future. In The Fourth Turning, historian William Strauss and consultant Neil Howe explain how Anglo-American history follows a pattern of four 15 to 25-year periods, called Turnings, and how the behaviors of different generations define these Turnings.

In our guide, we’ll explore the authors’ theories on the Four Turnings, as well as the generational archetypes and their respective roles in the Turnings. We’ll also discuss the authors’ descriptions of the past three Turnings and their predictions for the Fourth. Finally, we’ll examine the authors’ theories in the context of history and modern society, as well as how their predictions about the Fourth Turning have played out in the years since the book’s publication in 1997.

Conventional accounts of American history tend to focus on the people at the top—presidents, generals, CEOs, and other influential figures and their struggles, ambitions, hopes, and dreams. But what about average people? The ones who had to live with the consequences of elite decisions, and who often struggled in obscurity? In A People’s History of the United States, historian Howard Zinn aims to tell their story, providing a bottom-up view of American history focusing on Indigenous people, Black Americans, women, laborers, and activists.

Our guide outlines Zinn’s interpretation of significant events, themes, and historical trends in American history. Through our commentary, we’ll provide alternative opinions on the motivations behind and consequences of historical events. We’ll also further explain Zinn’s approach to history and provide additional context for his arguments as well as his perspective on events that happened after the book’s publication.