Naming Names

I was required to obtain a copy of this book for a class about the Hollywood Blacklist era, thus I expected it to be a boring near textbook like book. However, it is actually written very well and flows well enough to entice the reader to continue. If you have any interest in the Blacklist era, of which repercussions of it can still be seen today, I would read this book.

This provides some "up close and personal" portaits of a number of persons directly affected by the HUAC hearings and the Hollywood Blacklist. Really interesting look at how individual lives were so drastically affected by this widespread witch hunt (and very relevant to the current state of our society!)

When I bought this, I was uncertain that I could trust the perspective of the author: as publisher of The Nation (which I have written for) he is certifiably of the "left". I feared that he would take an obvious side, and hammer it into the ground. What I found instead was an absolutely and scrupulously fair interpretation of what happened in the McCarthy era and why so many good and talented people betrayed their erstwhile friends. Navasky approaches it as the worst kind of personal moral dilemma: how can you save your career and not betray your deepest personal (and sometimes still political) allegiances. The cast of characters comes predominently from the truly first rate, for example Jerome Robbins or Elia Kazan. Navassky shows how the struggled with their decision to name names, often convincing themselves that they had to do it to be an ethical person and good american, and then - to his great credit - he explores the shattering psychological repercussions that ensued. These actors in the drama are very human and caught in a dilemma so terrible that I pray I never will face a similar choice. Rather than seek a few weak bad guys, it is an indictment of an entire political system and policial era. Even if you are not convinced by his argument, the reader feels compelled to reflect on it. I certainly did. Warmly recommended as a profound inquiry into moral choice, placed vividly in historical context. This is a masterpiece.