Why read When the Nazis Came to Skokie?

Book cover of When the Nazis Came to Skokie: Freedom for Speech We Hate

Book description

In the Chicago suburb of Skokie, one out of every six Jewish citizens in the late 1970s was a survivor--or was directly related to a survivor--of the Holocaust. These victims of terror had resettled in America expecting to lead peaceful lives free from persecution. But their safe haven was shattered…

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Why read it?

1 author picked When the Nazis Came to Skokie as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Eric Heinze

Author

I found this book to be one of the best introductions to the endless dilemmas surrounding free speech. In the first half of the twentieth century, anxieties about free speech in the United States were triggered mostly on the left, with government attempts to stifle socialists and communists culminating in Senator Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunts, damaging and even destroying thousands of lives and careers.

Philippa Strum shows how, after the 1950s, this completely changed. The government’s increasing focus on far-right speech became an issue of burning importance when residents of a small Illinois town, home to Holocaust survivors, tried to…

From Eric's list on The best books to understand hate speech.