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.

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'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–in Russia, England, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey, Palestine, Brazil, the United States, and Canada.

"Of particular interest is Carol Sicherman'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's democracy and the appeal of Communism as an alternative to Nazism." –Curt F. Beck, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Connecticut.