Going Undercover to Expose America’s Ugly Side
The forgotten postwar best sellers that sussed out prejudice
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On Twitter and talk radio and cable TV, Americans today can easily express and hear echoes of their basest thoughts without too much difficulty—racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, the whole cacophony of hate. But at one time, really knowing what your neighbors were thinking, or seeing who was hiding under the white hood, took some investigating. In the period after World War II, remembered as an era of placid conformity, contending with the prejudice and hate this week.
