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linda_1410's review against another edition
informative
5.0
Very informative, and very important history. Post WWII America was rife with paranoia, and not just because of Communism. The conservative cult got it in their heads that LGBT people working in the State Department were threats to national security since they could be blackmailed. So instead of removing the strictures putting them in jeopardy - or even just investigating if any actually had been blackmailed - they decided the best thing to do was terminate their employment. What starts in the State Department quickly branches out into other departments, and all levels of government employment on the state and federal levels, whether national security was involved or not.
Seeing the extremes that they went through to alienate, persecute and vilify LGBT peoples, often based on nothing but rumor, and whether it was linked to Communism or not, was infuriating. This was at a time when people still blindly trusted the government and didn't know they didn't have to answer questions or cooperate with investigations voluntarily. And knowing that even though strides have been made, that civil liberties and rights have been won, that attitudes have changed towards tolerance and then acceptance for the majority of American citizens, it's important to be reminded of where we came from and how we came to enjoy the protections we have now, because there are those who are still actively seeking to rip those rights and protections away.
Listening to this, I could see where Orwell got his ideas for 1984. It wasn't just the Communists screwing over their citizens, and these kinds of raids on people's homes and invasions into their private lives were happening in the UK as well as the US. For all they like to pretend otherwise, there was a lot more overlap in how the US and UK treated their LGBT populations and people of color and how dictators treated their citizens.
It's easy to forget about this stage in our history, since the TV shows and movies of this time didn't showcase this part of reality. The news only highlighted it to stir up more anger and paranoia, not to report facts, and the majority of the population had no sympathy for the hardships LGBT people faced - though there were still voices of reason that tried to speak up and get through the hysteria.
Johnson leaves this history when things start to turn around for the better, but there was still a long, hard battle ahead to get to where we are now.
Seeing the extremes that they went through to alienate, persecute and vilify LGBT peoples, often based on nothing but rumor, and whether it was linked to Communism or not, was infuriating. This was at a time when people still blindly trusted the government and didn't know they didn't have to answer questions or cooperate with investigations voluntarily. And knowing that even though strides have been made, that civil liberties and rights have been won, that attitudes have changed towards tolerance and then acceptance for the majority of American citizens, it's important to be reminded of where we came from and how we came to enjoy the protections we have now, because there are those who are still actively seeking to rip those rights and protections away.
Listening to this, I could see where Orwell got his ideas for 1984. It wasn't just the Communists screwing over their citizens, and these kinds of raids on people's homes and invasions into their private lives were happening in the UK as well as the US. For all they like to pretend otherwise, there was a lot more overlap in how the US and UK treated their LGBT populations and people of color and how dictators treated their citizens.
It's easy to forget about this stage in our history, since the TV shows and movies of this time didn't showcase this part of reality. The news only highlighted it to stir up more anger and paranoia, not to report facts, and the majority of the population had no sympathy for the hardships LGBT people faced - though there were still voices of reason that tried to speak up and get through the hysteria.
Johnson leaves this history when things start to turn around for the better, but there was still a long, hard battle ahead to get to where we are now.
mollys_27's review
4.0
The first several chapters of this book reminded me of essays I've written - winding in circles, making the same point over and over again, ostensibly to tie it in to the main theme without doing much but summarizing. Part of this could be due to the fact that, thanks to how widely unrecognized the Lavender Scare is, the author seems to have felt the need to provide copious evidence for the history he reconstructs, which I can certainly appreciate regardless of the rather tedious first half of the book it creates. Past that point, as the book ventures into the late fifties and beyond, things certainly pick up, and it was not a hard book to get through.
Overall, the message of the book is fascinating and something I had not considered - through the fear of widespread homosexuality in the federal government and the subsequent mass discrimination against potentially homosexual employees, the gay community politically organized on a scale previously unheard of. The Lavender Scare ultimately backfired spectacularly on the federal government as it became a massive organizing force for gay people and led to a number of court cases that eventually prevented the government from continuing to discriminate in such a way.
Overall, the message of the book is fascinating and something I had not considered - through the fear of widespread homosexuality in the federal government and the subsequent mass discrimination against potentially homosexual employees, the gay community politically organized on a scale previously unheard of. The Lavender Scare ultimately backfired spectacularly on the federal government as it became a massive organizing force for gay people and led to a number of court cases that eventually prevented the government from continuing to discriminate in such a way.
jedwardsusc's review
4.0
Reading this in 2019, Johnson's description of McCarthy-era obsession with gays in the State Department offers interesting insights into the current Republican obsessions with the threats posed by the "deep State."
rschmidt7's review
5.0
Read this book if you want a broader understanding of "McCarthyism" that stretches far beyond just Sen. McCarthy.
Although this book focuses on the purges of homosexual government employees, the author does a great job of exploring the rigid, repressive social forces that greatly infringed upon all Americans' rights during these early years of the burgeoning "national security state," where everything was a secret, everyone was a suspect, and security clearances were the new currency. Recommended reading for all students of the Cold War and American history.
zezozose_zadfrack_glutz's review
3.0
This didn't necessarily knock my socks off, mostly due to its own stated limitations in focus, so i feel it's a bit unfair to review it too harshly. But if you're looking for an expansive understanding of homophobia in the pre-Stonewall era, I would look for a broader text than this can provide. It is mostly about discrimination and persecution amongst civil service workers, which can be hard to connect to the subsequent history of the lgbtq rights movement that has gone well beyond just white collar gays and lesbians. That said, I did like how this familiarized the reader with DC gay culture back in the 40s and 50s, how much and how little has changed, and how we collectively straightwash our looking back on "conservative" eras like that.