Gossip men : J. Edgar Hoover, Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn, and the politics of insinuation /

The legacies of Joseph McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover and Roy Cohn seem like they might be with us forever. Yet Christopher Elias finds in them startling new connections between gender, sexuality and national security in twentieth-century US politics, a paradigm he christens "security state masculin...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Elias, Christopher M. (Author)
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2021]
Subjects:
Description
Summary:The legacies of Joseph McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover and Roy Cohn seem like they might be with us forever. Yet Christopher Elias finds in them startling new connections between gender, sexuality and national security in twentieth-century US politics, a paradigm he christens "security state masculinity." Elias integrates biographies of the trio with a history of gossip magazines and their tactics, such as insinuation, guilt by association, hyperbole and alarmism, not to mention cynicism, slang and photographic manipulation, which all three used to consolidate their power. The story of security state masculinity reached its climax in the Army-McCarthy hearings, which were rife with insinuations and coded threats. Using gossip as a lens, Elias shifts our understanding of the development of American political culture.
Physical Description:303 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:9780226624822
022662482X