Wellfleet Public Library

Reds - The Tragedy of American Communism

After generations in the shadows, socialism is making headlines in the United States, following the Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns and the election of several democratic socialists to Congress. Today's leftists hail from a long lineage of anti-capitalist activists in the United States, yet the true legacy and lessons of their most radical and controversial forebears, the American Communists, remain little understood. In Reds: The Tragedy. of American Communism, historian Maurice Isserman focuses on the deeply contradictory nature of the history of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), a movement that attracted egalitarian idealists and bred authoritarian zealots.

Maurice Isserman is the Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of History at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. He is the author of many books, on topics ranging from the history of American radical movements to the history of mountaineering. He splits his time between New York and Cape Cod.