The Age of Anxiety: McCarthyism to Terrorism by Haynes Johnson, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, examines the parallels of President George W. Bush's "War on Terrorism" to Joe McCarthy's "War on Communism." The "Sedition Act of 1917," the "Espionage and Alien Act of 1918," "House Un-American Activities" of 1950 to the "USA Patriot Act" all have the same thing in common; they allowed national fear and anxiety to blind our national security and question civil liberties. Attorney General A Mitchell Palmer, in the wake of terrorism bombings in 1919, had at least 5,000 foreign nationals rounded up and imprisoned. Eighty years later Attorney John Ashcroft has at least 5,000 foreign nationals imprisoned; of those detainees none were convicted of a terrorist crime.

This book challenges us not to be so overcome with fear, as happened in the McCarthy period, that we over-react. We must not let fear blind us to those tasks necessary for providing national security limit necessary civil liberties.

--Cindy King