A wide-ranging, provocative study of how our notions of
democracy, freedom, and tolerance are threatened during political,
social, and economic crises.
In this ambitious history, Jay Feldman takes us from the
run-up to World War I and its anti-German hysteria through the
September 11th attacks and Arizona’s current anti-immigration
movement. What we see is a striking pattern of elected officials
and private citizens alike inflaming pervasive American fears and
prejudices to ostracize minorities, silence dissent, and stem the
growth of civil rights and liberties. Among the many examples
Feldman discusses are the government’s first efforts, during the
Depression, to deport and “repatriate” Mexicans and Mexican
Americans; President Franklin Roosevelt’s order of “summary
apprehension” of 112,000 people during World War II; and the
viciousness of the Cold War anticommunist campaign and the
consequent Lavender Scare, in which thousands of gay government
employees were fired on suspicion of “moral weakness.”
Feldman considers these and other events not as a series of
discrete moments, but as part of a continuous vein that runs
through American life. In Manufacturing Hysteria he gives us a
timely and powerful reminder of the vigilance required to preserve
our most basic ideals.