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Manufacturing Hysteria: A History of Scapegoating, Surveillance, and Secrecy in Modern America
Manufacturing Hysteria A History of Scapegoating Surveillance and Secrecy in Modern America Author:Jay Feldman A wide-ranging, provocative study of how our notions of democracy, freedom, and tolerance are threatened during political, social, and economic crises. — In this ambitious history, Jay Feldman takes us from the run-up to World War I and its anti-German hysteria through the September 11th attacks and Arizona?s current anti-immigration movement. Wh... more »at we see is a striking pattern of elected officials and private citizens alike inflaming pervasive American fears and prejudices to ostracize minorities, silence dissent, and stem the growth of civil rights and liberties. Among the many examples Feldman discusses are the government?s first efforts, during the Depression, to deport and ?repatriate? Mexicans and Mexican Americans; President Franklin Roosevelt?s order of ?summary apprehension? of 112,000 people during World War II; and the viciousness of the Cold War anticommunist campaign and the consequent Lavender Scare, in which thousands of gay government employees were fired on suspicion of ?moral weakness.?
Feldman considers these and other events not as a series of discrete moments, but as part of a continuous vein that runs through American life. In Manufacturing Hysteria he gives us a timely and powerful reminder of the vigilance required to preserve our most basic ideals.« less