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9780252081941 Add to Cart Academic Inspection Copy

Of G-Men and Eggheads:

The FBI and the New York Intellectuals
  • ISBN-13: 9780252081941
  • Publisher: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS
    Imprint: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS
  • By John Rodden
  • Price: AUD $43.99
  • Stock: 2 in stock
  • Availability: Order will be despatched as soon as possible.
  • Local release date: 16/04/2017
  • Format: Paperback (229.00mm X 152.00mm) 152 pages Weight: 260g
  • Categories: History of the Americas [HBJK]
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A forgotten Cold War witch hunt .
Spy romances of Cold War counter-espionage evoke scenes of heroic FBI and CIA agents dedicated to smashing Communism and its subversive coterie of intellectual fellow travelers bent on painting the world red.
John Rodden cuts this tall tale down to its authentic pint size, refusing to indulge the public relations myth promoted by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. In Of G-Men and Eggheads, Rodden portrays the hilarious obsession of federal agents with monitoring that ever-present threat to national security, the American literary intellectual. Drawing on government dossiers and archives, Rodden focuses on the onetime members of a radical political sect of ex-Trotkyists (barely numbering a thousand at its height), the so-called New York intellectuals. He describes the nonsensical pursuit over decades of this group of intellectuals, especially Lionel Trilling, Dwight Macdonald, and Irving Howe. The Keystone Cops style of numerous FBI agents is documented carefully in Rodden's meticulous case studies of how Hoover's men recruited informants to snoop on the "Commies," opened their personal mail, tracked their movements, and reported on their wives and friends.
In a rich and stimulating epilogue, Rodden shows how his Cold War research possesses thought-provoking implications for us today, in our 9/11 era of debate about data collection, privacy invasion, personal dignity, and the use and abuse of government and corporate power.
""A compelling piece of critical and scholarly work. Much of the evidence Rodden brings forward is surprising, indeed shocking. The work that he has done has significant implications for us today, in our 9/11 era of intense debate about intelligence-gathering, personal freedom, and the use and abuse of political authority and power.""--William E. Cain, author of F. O. Matthiessen and the Politics of Criticism
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