PRAISE FOR REDS

“An important and well-reasoned book…Morgan gets things right. In his nuanced and thorough overview of our nation’s confrontation with communism at home and abroad, he reaches conclusions that will challenge and even offend partisans but that bear the mark of solid history.”

—The Washington Post Book World

“A sweeping, well-told story…Morgan is a fair-minded chronicler, avoiding the partisan excesses that deform so many accounts of the subject. He does a fine job of explaining a huge subject that has often defied lucid treatment, to say nothing of moral honesty.”

—The Wall Street Journal

“Enlightening…The prime virtue of Reds…is [Morgan’s] understanding that in all too many cases, Communists and their adversaries inhabited the same hothouse of ideological obsession.”

—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“As balanced as it is readable…Anyone who wants to understand why Joe McCarthy continues to exercise such a grip on the American imagination could do no better than to read this book.”

—The Economist

“Morgan’s account of the years we remember by McCarthy’s name is rich and fast-paced, bringing life to a succession of all-but-forgotten persons and episodes, and culminating in many stirring pages retelling McCarthy’s awful progress to destruction before the accumulated wrath of those he had injured and outraged.”

—The New York Review of Books

“Ted Morgan, one of our ablest biographers and a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter…has done some assiduous digging…. A lot of work has gone into this huge book and there is much to be gained in reading it.”

—The Washington Times

“Morgan’s approach is valuable, establishing the historical context in which fear could so firmly take root. That fear led to abuses of power that, with a few exceptions, were met by political cowardice. It was a desolate time for American democracy, and Reds should be read partly as a warning against yet another incarnation of McCarthyism.”

—The Dallas Morning News

“Morgan has a new lens for viewing McCarthyism…. For casual readers who want to enhance their knowledge of recent U.S. history’s dark side, Reds ought to satisfy. As always, Morgan’s prose is a delight to read, and his research is impressive.”

—The Denver Post

“Morgan writes well, and his richly detailed narrative brings a fresh, compelling perspective to a familiar topic…. [He] paint[s] a vivid and alarming picture of the spy ring the Soviets ran in America for years.”

—The New Leader

“Morgan…is a biographer at heart, and here he uses his impressive biographical skills to enhance a fascinating narrative with numerous vignettes about the famous and infamous characters who inhabited the landscape of the decades-long Cold War…. Morgan’s book is a masterly synthesis that pulls together the diverse threads of a complicated story and makes it understandable to novice and expert alike; it is highly recommended.”

—Library Journal