Rude Awakenings: An American Historian's Encounter With Nazism, Communism and McCarthyism

A richly detailed portrait not only of a man struggling to lead an ethical life but of the disturbed times in which he lived.<br><br>Drawing on family papers, wide-ranging interviews, FBI files, American and German newspapers, a wide array of published sources, and her own memories, the author traces Marks&#39;s German American heritage, his education both formal and informal, his marriage to a fellow Communist from a poor Russian family, his rocky start as an academic, his anguish when confronted by his Communist past, and his ultimate creation of a satisfying career. Her sleuthing encompasses as well the paths to safety taken by his German friends as they found sanctuary around the world&ndash;in Russia, England, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey, Palestine, Brazil, the United States, and Canada.<br><br>&quot;Of particular interest is Carol Sicherman&#39;s carefully researched description of the anti-Semitic atmosphere that Jewish students encountered at Harvard in the twenties and thirties, as well as the experience of a young American thrown into the turmoil accompanying the collapse of Germany&#39;s democracy and the appeal of Communism as an alternative to Nazism.&quot; &ndash;Curt F. Beck, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Connecticut.