A Good American Family: The Red Scare And My Father

  • Author: David Maraniss
  • Narrator: David Maraniss
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster
  • Duration: 13:42:23
preview

Synopsis

Named a Best Book of 2019 by NPR and The Washington Post.

In a riveting book with powerful resonance today, Pulitzer Prize–winning author David Maraniss captures the pervasive fear and paranoia that gripped America during the Red Scare of the 1950s through the chilling yet affirming story of his family’s ordeal, from blacklisting to vindication.

Elliott Maraniss, David’s father, a WWII veteran who had commanded an all-black company in the Pacific, was spied on by the FBI, named as a communist by an informant, called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, fired from his newspaper job, and blacklisted for five years. Yet he never lost faith in America and emerged on the other side with his family and optimism intact.

In a sweeping drama that moves from the Depression and Spanish Civil War to the HUAC hearings and end of the McCarthy era, Maraniss weaves his father’s story through the lives of his inquisitors and defenders as they struggle with the vital twentieth-century issues of race, fascism, communism, and first amendment freedoms. A Good American Family powerfully evokes the political dysfunctions of the 1950s while underscoring what it really means to be an American. It is an unsparing yet moving tribute from a brilliant writer to his father and the family he protected in dangerous times.

Chapters

  • 001 AGoodAmericanFamily Open

    Duration: 38s
  • 002 AGoodAmericanFamily Dedication

    Duration: 30s
  • 003 AGoodAmericanFamily Part1 WatchingOneAnother Chapter1 TheImperfectS

    Duration: 20min
  • 004 AGoodAmericanFamily Part1 WatchingOneAnother Chapter2 InFromTheCold

    Duration: 22min
  • 005 AGoodAmericanFamily Part1 WatchingOneAnother Chapter3 OutsideTheGate

    Duration: 31min
  • 006 AGoodAmericanFamily Part1 WatchingOneAnother Chapter4 RedMenace

    Duration: 19min
  • 007 AGoodAmericanFamily Part1 WatchingOneAnother Chapter5 WheelmanWood

    Duration: 35min
  • 008 AGoodAmericanFamily Part1 WatchingOneAnother Chapter6 Negro,NotNiggra

    Duration: 25min
  • 009 AGoodAmericanFamily Part1 WatchingOneAnother Chapter7 ANewWorldComing

    Duration: 34min
  • 010 AGoodAmericanFamily Part1 WatchingOneAnother Chapter8 ABriefSpanishInquisition

    Duration: 07min
  • 011 AGoodAmericanFamily Part1 WatchingOneAnother Chapter9 TheRunner

    Duration: 01h06min
  • 012 AGoodAmericanFamily Part1 WatchingOneAnother Chapter10 Named

    Duration: 13min
  • 013 AGoodAmericanFamily Part1 WatchingOneAnother Chapter11 AceAndMary

    Duration: 01h34s
  • 014 AGoodAmericanFamily Part1 WatchingOneAnother Chapter12 FearAndLoathing

    Duration: 13min
  • 015 AGoodAmericanFamily Part2 InATimeOfWar Chapter13 SomethingInTheWind

    Duration: 38min
  • 016 AGoodAmericanFamily Part2 InATimeOfWar Chapter14 Legless

    Duration: 10min
  • 017 AGoodAmericanFamily Part2 InATimeOfWar Chapter15 KnowYourMen

    Duration: 38min
  • 018 AGoodAmericanFamily Part2 InATimeOfWar Chapter16 WhyIFight

    Duration: 08min
  • 019 AGoodAmericanFamily Part2 InATimeOfWar Chapter17 InTheBlood

    Duration: 03min
  • 020 AGoodAmericanFamily Part2 InATimeOfWar Chapter18 ThePowerOfAmerica

    Duration: 32min
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