Naming Names

Written by Victor S. Navasky

Narrated by Eric Michael Summerer

Winner of the National Book Award: The definitive history of Joe McCarthy, the Hollywood blacklist, and HUAC explores the events behind the hit film Trumbo.

Drawing on interviews with over one hundred and fifty people who were called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee-including Elia Kazan, Ring Lardner Jr., and Arthur Miller-award-winning author Victor S. Navasky reveals how and why the blacklists were so effective and delves into the tragic and far-reaching consequences of Joseph McCarthy's witch hunts.

A compassionate, insightful, and even-handed examination of one of our country's darkest hours, Naming Names is at once a morality play and a fascinating window onto a searing moment in American cultural and political history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Aug 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9781515933441

Victor S. Navasky

Victor S. Navasky authored Naming Names, which won the National Book Award, and Kennedy Justice, a National Book Award finalist. For many years the editor of the Nation, and then its publisher, Navasky taught at a number of colleges and universities including Princeton University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he chaired the Columbia Journalism Review. He contributed articles and reviews to numerous magazines and journals of opinion, and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and a George Polk Award. Navasky was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences up until his death in 2023 at the age of 90.

Reviews for Naming Names

[stevesmits · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The first edition appeared in the early 1980's, but Navasky has updated this version to post 2001. This is an exhaustively researched history and analysis of the Hollywood "show" hearings of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee of the late 1940's and 1950's. His exploration was timely as most of those who were involved in, or impacted by, the witch hunts were still living and enough time had passed to open up their willingness to talkNavasky explores the motivations of those who informed and those who refused to "name names". His insights are deeply informed from political, cultural, psychological and philosophical perspectives. He is generally critical of those who told on others, but he digs deep into the rationales of people who informed or withheld. He discusses the morality of, and devastating practical consequences of, the "black lists" that emerged from the revelations of who had been a communist decades earlier, or who refused to cooperate with the committee. He touches on the strategies -- legal and public relations -- employed by those compelled to testify.Navasky correctly does not draw parallels too closely to Stalin's show trials whose results saw thousands executed or imprisoned; in America only a few were sent to prison and more lost their livelihoods. Nonetheless, he paints a picture of an ugly time in our history. Navasky doesn't delve deeply into the committee itself and the political purposes that underlay its activities. This is not his intended focus, but the implications of this bald effort to gain political advantage is clear.

[casualfriday_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A riveting history of the blacklist, and a clear-eyed yet compassionate portrayal of those who informed against their colleagues.