ABSTRACT
In May 2010, the Texas State Board of Education formally approved a series of changes to the state’s social studies curriculum. The edits were presented as a conservative “corrective” to progressive approaches to teaching history and economics. In a hand-written memorandum to the State’s textbook committee on October 5, 2009, Don McLeroy had advised the group’s members to “read the latest on McCarthy—he was basically vindicated.” Originally elected to the Senate as a Republican from Wisconsin in 1946, Joseph Raymond McCarthy rose to national prominence in February 1950. McCarthy’s brash attitude and ungentlemanly tactics had made him a target of public animus even at the height of his political influence. Blacklisted by History opens with a jeremiad against prior treatments of McCarthy, accusing historians and journalists of both deliberately and unknowingly recycling “bogus” information about McCarthy.
