Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
With a New Afterword by the Author
“An astonishing work concerning personal honor and dishonor, shame and shamelessness. A book of stunning insights and suspense.” —Studs Terkel
Half a century later, the investigation of Hollywood radicals by the House Committee on Un-American Activities still haunts the public conscience. Naming Names, reissued here with a new afterword by the author, is the definitive account of the hearings, a National Book Award winner widely hailed as a classic. Victor S. Navasky adroitly dissects the motivations for the investigation and offers a poignant analysis of its consequences. Focusing on the movie-studio workers who avoided blacklists only by naming names at the hearings, he explores the terrifying dilemmas of those who informed and the tragedies of those who were informed on. Drawing on interviews with more than 150 people called to testify—among them Elia Kazan, Ring Lardner Jr., and Arthur Miller—Naming Names presents a compelling portrait of how the blacklists operated with such chilling efficiency.
"An astonishing work concerning personal honor and dishonor, shame and shamelessness."-Studs Terkel
Synopsis
With a New Afterword by the Author
“An astonishing work concerning personal honor and dishonor, shame and shamelessness. A book of stunning insights and suspense.” —Studs Terkel
Half a century later, the investigation of Hollywood radicals by the House Committee on Un-American Activities still haunts the public conscience. Naming Names, reissued here with a new afterword by the author, is the definitive account of the hearings, a National Book Award winner widely hailed as a classic. Victor S. Navasky adroitly dissects the motivations for the investigation and offers a poignant analysis of its consequences. Focusing on the movie-studio workers who avoided blacklists only by naming names at the hearings, he explores the terrifying dilemmas of those who informed and the tragedies of those who were informed on. Drawing on interviews with more than 150 people called to testify—among them Elia Kazan, Ring Lardner Jr., and Arthur Miller—Naming Names presents a compelling portrait of how the blacklists operated with such chilling efficiency.
Editorials
From the Publisher
“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 has done a splendid job bringing this enormous mass of facts to coherence and meaning, judging its ethical import so rigorously and fairly. Naming Names is must reading.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review