Skip to content

Booksellers & Trade Customers: Sign up for online bulk buying at trade.atlanticbooks.com for wholesale discounts

Booksellers: Create Account on our B2B Portal for wholesale discounts

Commonsense Anticommunism: Labor and Civil Liberties Between the World Wars

by Jennifer Luff
Save 17% Save 17%
Current price ₹4,197.00
Original price ₹5,037.00
Original price ₹5,037.00
Original price ₹5,037.00
(-17%)
₹4,197.00
Current price ₹4,197.00

Imported Edition - Ships in 18-21 Days

Free Shipping in India on orders above Rs. 500

Request Bulk Quantity Quote
+91
Book cover type: Paperback
  • ISBN13: 9781469622125
  • Binding: Paperback
  • Subject: N/A
  • Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
  • Publisher Imprint: University of North Carolina Press
  • Publication Date:
  • Pages: 304
  • Original Price: USD 39.95
  • Language: English
  • Edition: Reprint
  • Item Weight: 468 grams
  • BISAC Subject(s): Labor & Industrial Relations

Between the Great War and Pearl Harbor, conservative labor leaders declared themselves America's "first line of defense" against Communism. In this surprising account, Jennifer Luff shows how the American Federation of Labor fanned popular anticommunism but defended Communists' civil liberties in the aftermath of the 1919 Red Scare. The AFL's "commonsense anticommunism," she argues, steered a middle course between the American Legion and the ACLU, helping to check campaigns for federal sedition laws. But in the 1930s, frustration with the New Deal
order led labor conservatives to redbait the Roosevelt administration and liberal unionists and abandon their reluctant civil libertarianism for red scare politics. That frustration contributed to the legal architecture of federal anticommunism that culminated with the McCarthyist fervor of the 1950s.
Relying on untapped archival sources, Luff reveals how labor conservatives and the emerging civil liberties movement debated the proper role of the state in policing radicals and grappled with the challenges to the existing political order posed by Communist organizers. Surprising conclusions about familiar figures, like J. Edgar Hoover, and unfamiliar episodes, like a German plot to disrupt American munitions manufacture, make Luff's story a fresh retelling of the interwar years.

Luff, Jennifer: - Jennifer Luff is lecturer in U.S. history at Durham University in the United Kingdom.

Trusted for over 49 years

Family Owned Company

Secure Payment

All Major Credit Cards/Debit Cards/UPI & More Accepted

New & Authentic Products

India's Largest Distributor

Need Support?

Whatsapp Us