One of those questions that is supposed to elicit a profound answer is, What one book influenced you more than any other? Or (worse), What book changed your life? As the daughter of an author, as a life-long lover of books, I felt there must be such a book, there should be such a book, and that maybe there was something lacking in me since, for most of my life, I groped for the answer.
Then in 2007 I picked up Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Sen. Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies by M. Stanton Evans.
Who was M. Stanton Evans? I didn’t really know, but suspected I should. Who was Joe McCarthy? I didn’t know too much more. Indeed, all I “knew” — part of the air we breathe — was that McCarthy was, without peer, the worst man in American history. Always chasing mythical Communists for no particular reason, and ruining everything, including anti-Communism.
But there was McCarthy in the black and white photo that makes up the handsome book jacket, seated on a stone bench not far from the Capitol. He looks clean-cut, nicely dressed, prematurely balding but powerful-looking and with plenty of black hair, his dark brows furrowed as he reads quite intently from a sheaf of papers.
Read the rest at DianaWest.net.