Of G-Men and Eggheads

John Rodden has taught at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Virginia. He has published four other books on the New York intellectuals.

"Rodden's text provides more than just a historical case study: it offers a challenge to its readers to be wary of increased surveillance and intrusion into the private lives of US citizens, especially in an era dominated by 'far-reaching, digitized tentacles of both government and private industry.'"--H-Net"Almost forty-give years since death terminated the reign of FBI director/dictator J. Edgar Hoover, the Bureau's abuses and follies continue to surface. John Rodden has skillfully excavated such concerning the FBI's surveillance of (and often error and/or confusion-ridden files on) three leading so-called New York Intellectuals, all anti-Stalinists with minor past ties with Trotskyist groups, whose sins entirely consisted of their written or oral political views. Rodden, an expert on George Orwell, concludes by aptly warning that the United States is rapidly approaching an Orwellian world of never-ending warfare and ever-increasing governmental surveillance that poses a major threat to the privacy and civil liberties of everyone."--Robert Justin Goldstein, author of Political Repression in Modern America: From 1870 to 1976 "A compelling piece of critical and scholarly work. Much of the evidence Rodden brings forward is surprising, indeed shocking. The work that he has done has significant implications for us today, in our post-9/11 era of intense debate about intelligence gathering, personal freedom, and the use and abuse of political authority and power."--William E. Cain, author of F. O. Matthiessen and the Politics of Criticism