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Historical person
1908–1957
Joseph McCarthy was an American senator who became the symbol of aggressive anticommunist accusation in the early Cold War. He claimed extensive communist infiltration of government, used public hearings and unsupported allegations, and was censured by the Senate after his methods lost support.
In Gore Vidal’s The Golden Age, after Roosevelt’s death, the narrative follows Harry S. Truman’s administration, the opening of the Cold War, the Korean War and the rise of Joseph McCarthy. Gore Vidal’s Washington D C places Joseph McCarthy within a narrative shaped by social change and the pressures of ordinary life, political ambition and government, and family, marriage and personal loyalty.
Historical context
Series
Gore Vidal’s seven-volume Narratives of Empire sequence follows the United States from the revolutionary generation to the Cold War, combining the lives of the fictional Schuyler, Sanford and Day families with presidents, senators, journalists and political operators. The novels treat public history as a contest over power, reputation…
All books in this series
