| False Witness Contributor(s): Rader, Melvin (Author), Schroeter, Leonard (Afterword by) |
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ISBN: 0295977027 ISBN-13: 9780295977027 Publisher: University of Washington Press OUR PRICE: $28.50 Product Type: Paperback Published: December 1997 Annotation: In the summer of 1948, with Cold War tensions rising, a young state legislator front Spokane, Washington, named Albert Canwell set out to combat the "communist menace" through a state version of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. University of Washington professor Melvin Rader was a victim of the Canwell Committee's rush to judgment, but he fought back. False Witness tells of his struggle to clear his name. It is a testament of personal courage in the face of mass hysteria and a cautionary example of how basic freedoms can rapidly erode when the powers of the state are allowed to serve a rigid ideological agenda. Fifty years after the Canwell Committee's inception, False Witness is reissued as part of the All Powers Project, a multidisciplinary effort by the University of Washington to recreate, reexamine, and redefine the significance today of those tumultuous times. The book includes a new Afterword by Leonard Schroeter, a Seattle attorney and activist who succeeded Melvin Rader as president of the Washington chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Biography & Autobiography | Historical - History | United States - 20th Century - Political Science | History & Theory - General |
| Dewey: 979.7 |
| LCCN: 97032719 |
| Physical Information: 0.69" H x 5.56" W x 8.57" (0.73 lbs) 264 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 1940's - Cultural Region - Pacific Northwest - Cultural Region - Western U.S. - Geographic Orientation - Washington |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In the summer of 1948, with Cold War tensions rising, a young state legislator from Spokane, Washington, named Albert Canwell set out to combat the "communist menace" through a state version of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. University of Washington professor Melvin Rader was a victim of the Canwell Committee's rush to judgment, but he fought back. False Witness tells of his struggle to clear his name. It is a testament of personal courage in the face of mass hysteria and a cautionary example of how basic freedoms can rapidly erode when the powers of the state are allowed to serve a rigid ideological agenda. |