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June 2015 Vol. 52 No. 10

In the aftermath of WW I and the Russian Revolution, the US reacted to the tumult of global conflict and the rise of communism with a “Red Scare.”  Fears of leftist radicalism spiked, and conservatives cast everything from unionization efforts to political dissent as heralding the arrival of “Bolshevism.”  Ryan (Rider Univ.) argues that this antiradicalism extended beyond politics and economics to the realms of gender, sexuality, and family life.  Contrasting Americanism to Bolshevism, antiradicals equated traditional patriarchal families with the “American” way of life and saw any challenges to that system as un-American.  Thus, argues Ryan, the Red Scare provided a means of countering the rapid social changes taking place in the late 1910s and 1920s, which included feminism, changing sexual morals, and the rise of companionate marriage.  The author has an accessible writing style and convincingly argues her point.  The book's nuanced subject matter will enrich research collections and prove most useful to readers at the graduate or faculty level.

--S. Ferentinos, independent scholar

Summing Up: Recommended. Most useful to readers at the graduate or faculty level.