Manufacturing Hysteria: A History of Scapegoating, Surveillance, and Secrecy in Modern America

A wide-ranging, provocative study of how our notions of democracy, freedom, and tolerance are threatened during political, social, and economic crises.

In this ambitious history, Jay Feldman takes us from the run-up to World War I and its anti-German hysteria through the September 11th attacks and Arizona’s current anti-immigration movement. What we see is a striking pattern of elected officials and private citizens alike inflaming pervasive American fears and prejudices to ostracize minori...