A New History of the Hollywood Blacklist

The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings in 1947 that led to prison terms for the Hollywood Ten screenwriters who refused to name names, and to others informing on their industry colleagues, is, where I come from, an old story. As a teenager visiting my communist Aunt Minna on the West Coast, I found it frustrating to watch television in her presence, because she would invariably announce about this or that actor: He ratted. Sang his guts out! Change the channel.It is pleasantly surprising, then, that a book about such a seemingly tired subject should be so readable and informative. Thomas Doherty, a professor of American Studies at Brandeis University, has already established his credentials as an entertaining writer and a demon researcher, with books on pre-code Hollywood, the Breen censorship office, television in the McCarthy era, and the relation between Hollywood and Hitler. In Show Trial, his…