Reviews of Subversives (excerpted):
New York Times Book Review, 10-5-12, “The Hunters and the Hunted,” by Matt Taibbi:
An “electrifying examination of a newly declassified treasure trove of documents detailing our government’s campaign of surveillance of the Berkeley campus during the ‘60s. Rosenfeld spent 30 years fighting to compel the government to release more than 300,000 pages of documents about the illegal spying program, an effort the F.B.I. spent almost a million dollars opposing. […] But ‘Subversives’ has a powerful story to tell about the vanity and stupidity of political leaders of any persuasion who squander public resources spying on personal enemies and obsessing over personal hangups – and the frightening weakness of the laws designed to restrain their authority. […] ‘Subversives’ chronicles many examples of this phenomenon. […] Rosenfeld’s decades of hard-fought research into the romanticized, rapidly receding past of the ‘60s era produce a relevant warning.”
Bookforum, Sept/Oct/Nov 2012, “Peeping Ron,” by Rick Perlstein:
An “unbelievably good book. […] The product of more than thirty years’ indomitable work acquiring the files via the Freedom of Information Act to yield these new secrets, this volume is also an outstanding primer on the postwar Red Scare; a riveting account of the origins, development, and philosophy of the New Left; and a penetrating look into the mind of Reagan. But most of all, it is the best account I’ve read of how the FBI corroded due process and democracy. […] Rosenfeld calls his masterpiece of historical reconstruction and narrative propulsion Subversives.”
The New Yorker, 10-18-12, “Briefly Noted”:
“Armed with a panoply of interviews, court rulings and freshly acquired F.B.I. documents, Rosenfeld shows how J. Edgar Hoover unlawfully distributed confidential intelligence to undermine the nineteen-sixties protest movement in Berkeley, while brightening the political stars of friendly informants like Ronald Reagan. Rosenfeld’s history, at once encyclopedic and compelling, follows a number of interwoven threads.”
The Christian Science Monitor, 7-5-12, “Subversives,” by Carlo Wolff:
“His book is crucial history. It’s also a warning. […] Rosenfeld has an agenda in this book of patience and passion: setting straight a previously hidden – and consequential – record. […] In his Appendix, Rosenfeld says files he pried loose ‘show that during the Cold War, FBI officials sought to change the course of history by secretly interceding in events, manipulating public opinion, and taking sides in partisan politics. The bureau’s efforts, decades later, to improperly withhold information about those activities under the FOIA ate (sic), in effect, another attempt to shape history, this time by obscuring the past.’ Profound thanks to Seth Rosenfeld outing the truth and speaking truth to power.”
The Boston Globe, 9-1-12, “‘Subversives’ by Seth Rosenfeld,” by Michael Washburn:
“‘Subversives’ is much more than a rehash of Hoover’s previously revealed folly, though. The product of a decades-long battle with the FBI, “Subversives” draws on 250,000 newly released FBI documents. The bureau fought Rosenfeld, a former investigative reporter for the San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle, every step of the way. But after 30 years, four lawsuits, and nearly $1 million of taxpayer money spent by the FBI to thwart his efforts, Rosenfeld lays bare the bureau’s sometimes illegal, 1960s surveillance and intervention efforts aimed at student and faculty activities on the University of California-Berkeley campus. Rosenfeld also shows us a long suppressed, unflattering side of Ronald Reagan, then an aging actor and fledgling politician. […] Seth Rosenfeld has produced a readable and important book about a key turning point in 20th century America.”
Nieman Reports: Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, Fall 2012, “Un-American Activities,” by Todd Gitlin:
“Rosenfeld has produced a scrupulous chronicle and analysis of America's deep politics, the likes of which exists nowhere else. This writer has long surmised that some of what Rosenfeld reports might be true, but wondered if paranoia was getting the better of him. It was not. The record of the FBI's obsession and meddling is overwhelming and, across the abyss of time, still shocking. (I should disclose that I read the galley to write a blurb several months ago, but even on second reading, I'm bowled over by what Rosenfeld has found.) What he uncovered is, to use a word of that era, dynamite. […] But the story Rosenfeld tells so lucidly and at such necessary length should not be considered ancient history, interesting merely as a quarry for the antiquarian delectation of specialists and veterans. It points to something even more vast and unexplored: presumed troves of evidence concerning the surveillance—unrelated to any legitimate law enforcement purposes and sequestered from public view for decades—of untold numbers of American citizens by government agencies.”
Berkeleyside, 8-29-12, “The FBI’s secret war against Berkeley,” by Frances Dinkelspiel:
“The book, which is the culmination of a 30-year investigation and five lawsuits against the FBI, is a masterpiece of reporting and writing …. […] By intertwining three narratives, that of the FBI’s relationship to Clark Kerr, Ronald Reagan and Mario Savio, Rosenfeld creates a readable, dramatic, and disturbing portrait of a federal agency gone amok.”
Publishers Weekly, May 2012, “Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals and Reagan’s Rise to Power” (Starred review):
“By tracing the FBI’s involvement with these figures, Rosenfeld reveals how the agency’s counterintelligence program took tactics originally developed for use against foreign adversaries during the cold war and turned them on domestic groups whose politics the agency considered “un-American.” Rosenfeld also draws on court transcripts, newspaper archives, oral histories, historical works, and hundreds of interviews. The result is narrative nonfiction at its best.”
Kirkus’ Review, 8-15-12, “Subversives” (Best of 2012, starred review):
“A kaleidoscopic look at the FBI’s willingness to undermine American citizens during the 1960s. […] One of the subtexts of this masterfully researched book is Rosenfeld’s years long struggle to gain access to the relevant FBI documents, a fight that reveals the extent to which the FBI knew how explosive and embarrassing this story could be to the government. In an appendix, the author details that struggle, which ‘resulted in the release of the most extensive record of FBI activities concerning a university during J. Edgar Hoover’s tenure, and the most complete release of bureau records on Ronald Reagan.’”
S.F. Chronicle, 8-20-12, “‘Subversives,’ by Seth Rosenfeld,” by Jay Feldman:
“Several books have dealt directly or tangentially with the Berkeley student revolt, but Seth Rosenfeld's ‘Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicals, and Reagan's Rise to Power’ presents a new and encompassing perspective, including a revisionist view of Ronald Reagan and a detailed picture of FBI corruption. The details of the story did not come easily. It took Rosenfeld, a former reporter for The Chronicle and the Examiner, 25 years and five Freedom of Information Act lawsuits to finally get all the material he requested from the FBI. […]In the end, "Subversives" is a cautionary tale, illuminating, as Rosenfeld puts it, "the dangers that the combination of secrecy and power pose to democracy, especially during turbulent times." Rosenfeld's unadorned, workmanlike prose generates a well-paced and wide-ranging narrative.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer, 10-22-12, “Seth Rosenfeld's authoritative 'Subversives' uncovers FBI's and Reagan's ruthlessness,” by William Kist:
“‘Subversives’ is a weighty piece of journalism, built over 30 years and five lawsuits that eventually forced the release of 300,000 pages of classified documents. The careful, dense footnotes run 162 pages. […] Reading ‘Subversives’ is sad, sordid and unsettling, but for those the FBI quashed, the era was a nightmare. Rosenfeld sought comment from current FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III: ‘Such investigations are wrong and antidemocratic, and past examples are a stain on the FBI's greater tradition of observing and protecting the freedom of Americans to exercise their First Amendment rights,’ Mueller told him. What's scary is that Mueller's words are almost identical to public quotes from Hoover more than a half-century ago.”
Truthdig, 8-14-12, “Reagan and Hoover, Sittin’ in a Tree,” by Peter Richardson:
“As an investigative reporter, Rosenfeld is relentless but by no means one-sided. Even as he probes the liaison between Hoover and Reagan, he also corrects some leftist hagiography. His research indicates that Richard Aoki, a leader in the Black Panther Party and UC Berkeley’s Third World Liberation Front, was also an FBI informer. […] One of the book’s most interesting stories concerns the FBI’s efforts to withhold information about its assistance to Reagan. In an appendix, Rosenfeld details the lawsuits he filed and won over three decades to acquire the relevant FBI documents. The heroes of this saga include San Francisco federal Judge Marilyn Patel, who ruled that ‘Information regarding acts taken to protect or promote Reagan’s political career, or acts done as political favors to Reagan[,], serve no legitimate law enforcement purpose.’ […] ‘Subversives’ allows us to see this part of our history steadily, whole and for the first time. It is both a major achievement and a fresh opportunity to consider who, exactly, was subverting what.”
The Daily Beast, 8-23-12, “The FBI’s Harassment and Spying on 1960s Students Revealed in 'Subversives' by Seth Rosenfeld," by Michael Kazin:
“I confess that I first opened this stocky book with a skeptical mind. What is there left to learn about Berkeley in the 1960s? […] Happily, Seth Rosenfeld, a veteran investigative reporter from the Bay Area, found a splendid way to refresh this familiar story—with tens of thousands of pages of previously unreleased FBI documents. And his narrative, while lengthy, moves along with vigor, enlivened by deft portraits of major and minor characters and the many battles, literal and figurative, they fought. The files, in their entirety, took Rosenfeld 30 years and four lawsuits to pry out of the Bureau, and it was definitely time well spent.”
Southern California Quarterly, The Historical Society of Southern California, Spring 2014, review by John T. Donovan, lecturer, California State University, Los Angeles:
“Seth Rosenfeld’s Subversives is an impressive work …. Future historians and Reagan biographers need to consult this very fine work.”
American Studies, Volume 52, Number 3, 2013, by Bernard F. Dick:
“Subversives is a monumental achievement …. Subversives should be required reading for the social network generation ….”
An “electrifying examination of a newly declassified treasure trove of documents detailing our government’s campaign of surveillance of the Berkeley campus during the ‘60s. Rosenfeld spent 30 years fighting to compel the government to release more than 300,000 pages of documents about the illegal spying program, an effort the F.B.I. spent almost a million dollars opposing. […] But ‘Subversives’ has a powerful story to tell about the vanity and stupidity of political leaders of any persuasion who squander public resources spying on personal enemies and obsessing over personal hangups – and the frightening weakness of the laws designed to restrain their authority. […] ‘Subversives’ chronicles many examples of this phenomenon. […] Rosenfeld’s decades of hard-fought research into the romanticized, rapidly receding past of the ‘60s era produce a relevant warning.”
Bookforum, Sept/Oct/Nov 2012, “Peeping Ron,” by Rick Perlstein:
An “unbelievably good book. […] The product of more than thirty years’ indomitable work acquiring the files via the Freedom of Information Act to yield these new secrets, this volume is also an outstanding primer on the postwar Red Scare; a riveting account of the origins, development, and philosophy of the New Left; and a penetrating look into the mind of Reagan. But most of all, it is the best account I’ve read of how the FBI corroded due process and democracy. […] Rosenfeld calls his masterpiece of historical reconstruction and narrative propulsion Subversives.”
The New Yorker, 10-18-12, “Briefly Noted”:
“Armed with a panoply of interviews, court rulings and freshly acquired F.B.I. documents, Rosenfeld shows how J. Edgar Hoover unlawfully distributed confidential intelligence to undermine the nineteen-sixties protest movement in Berkeley, while brightening the political stars of friendly informants like Ronald Reagan. Rosenfeld’s history, at once encyclopedic and compelling, follows a number of interwoven threads.”
The Christian Science Monitor, 7-5-12, “Subversives,” by Carlo Wolff:
“His book is crucial history. It’s also a warning. […] Rosenfeld has an agenda in this book of patience and passion: setting straight a previously hidden – and consequential – record. […] In his Appendix, Rosenfeld says files he pried loose ‘show that during the Cold War, FBI officials sought to change the course of history by secretly interceding in events, manipulating public opinion, and taking sides in partisan politics. The bureau’s efforts, decades later, to improperly withhold information about those activities under the FOIA ate (sic), in effect, another attempt to shape history, this time by obscuring the past.’ Profound thanks to Seth Rosenfeld outing the truth and speaking truth to power.”
The Boston Globe, 9-1-12, “‘Subversives’ by Seth Rosenfeld,” by Michael Washburn:
“‘Subversives’ is much more than a rehash of Hoover’s previously revealed folly, though. The product of a decades-long battle with the FBI, “Subversives” draws on 250,000 newly released FBI documents. The bureau fought Rosenfeld, a former investigative reporter for the San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle, every step of the way. But after 30 years, four lawsuits, and nearly $1 million of taxpayer money spent by the FBI to thwart his efforts, Rosenfeld lays bare the bureau’s sometimes illegal, 1960s surveillance and intervention efforts aimed at student and faculty activities on the University of California-Berkeley campus. Rosenfeld also shows us a long suppressed, unflattering side of Ronald Reagan, then an aging actor and fledgling politician. […] Seth Rosenfeld has produced a readable and important book about a key turning point in 20th century America.”
Nieman Reports: Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, Fall 2012, “Un-American Activities,” by Todd Gitlin:
“Rosenfeld has produced a scrupulous chronicle and analysis of America's deep politics, the likes of which exists nowhere else. This writer has long surmised that some of what Rosenfeld reports might be true, but wondered if paranoia was getting the better of him. It was not. The record of the FBI's obsession and meddling is overwhelming and, across the abyss of time, still shocking. (I should disclose that I read the galley to write a blurb several months ago, but even on second reading, I'm bowled over by what Rosenfeld has found.) What he uncovered is, to use a word of that era, dynamite. […] But the story Rosenfeld tells so lucidly and at such necessary length should not be considered ancient history, interesting merely as a quarry for the antiquarian delectation of specialists and veterans. It points to something even more vast and unexplored: presumed troves of evidence concerning the surveillance—unrelated to any legitimate law enforcement purposes and sequestered from public view for decades—of untold numbers of American citizens by government agencies.”
Berkeleyside, 8-29-12, “The FBI’s secret war against Berkeley,” by Frances Dinkelspiel:
“The book, which is the culmination of a 30-year investigation and five lawsuits against the FBI, is a masterpiece of reporting and writing …. […] By intertwining three narratives, that of the FBI’s relationship to Clark Kerr, Ronald Reagan and Mario Savio, Rosenfeld creates a readable, dramatic, and disturbing portrait of a federal agency gone amok.”
Publishers Weekly, May 2012, “Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals and Reagan’s Rise to Power” (Starred review):
“By tracing the FBI’s involvement with these figures, Rosenfeld reveals how the agency’s counterintelligence program took tactics originally developed for use against foreign adversaries during the cold war and turned them on domestic groups whose politics the agency considered “un-American.” Rosenfeld also draws on court transcripts, newspaper archives, oral histories, historical works, and hundreds of interviews. The result is narrative nonfiction at its best.”
Kirkus’ Review, 8-15-12, “Subversives” (Best of 2012, starred review):
“A kaleidoscopic look at the FBI’s willingness to undermine American citizens during the 1960s. […] One of the subtexts of this masterfully researched book is Rosenfeld’s years long struggle to gain access to the relevant FBI documents, a fight that reveals the extent to which the FBI knew how explosive and embarrassing this story could be to the government. In an appendix, the author details that struggle, which ‘resulted in the release of the most extensive record of FBI activities concerning a university during J. Edgar Hoover’s tenure, and the most complete release of bureau records on Ronald Reagan.’”
S.F. Chronicle, 8-20-12, “‘Subversives,’ by Seth Rosenfeld,” by Jay Feldman:
“Several books have dealt directly or tangentially with the Berkeley student revolt, but Seth Rosenfeld's ‘Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicals, and Reagan's Rise to Power’ presents a new and encompassing perspective, including a revisionist view of Ronald Reagan and a detailed picture of FBI corruption. The details of the story did not come easily. It took Rosenfeld, a former reporter for The Chronicle and the Examiner, 25 years and five Freedom of Information Act lawsuits to finally get all the material he requested from the FBI. […]In the end, "Subversives" is a cautionary tale, illuminating, as Rosenfeld puts it, "the dangers that the combination of secrecy and power pose to democracy, especially during turbulent times." Rosenfeld's unadorned, workmanlike prose generates a well-paced and wide-ranging narrative.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer, 10-22-12, “Seth Rosenfeld's authoritative 'Subversives' uncovers FBI's and Reagan's ruthlessness,” by William Kist:
“‘Subversives’ is a weighty piece of journalism, built over 30 years and five lawsuits that eventually forced the release of 300,000 pages of classified documents. The careful, dense footnotes run 162 pages. […] Reading ‘Subversives’ is sad, sordid and unsettling, but for those the FBI quashed, the era was a nightmare. Rosenfeld sought comment from current FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III: ‘Such investigations are wrong and antidemocratic, and past examples are a stain on the FBI's greater tradition of observing and protecting the freedom of Americans to exercise their First Amendment rights,’ Mueller told him. What's scary is that Mueller's words are almost identical to public quotes from Hoover more than a half-century ago.”
Truthdig, 8-14-12, “Reagan and Hoover, Sittin’ in a Tree,” by Peter Richardson:
“As an investigative reporter, Rosenfeld is relentless but by no means one-sided. Even as he probes the liaison between Hoover and Reagan, he also corrects some leftist hagiography. His research indicates that Richard Aoki, a leader in the Black Panther Party and UC Berkeley’s Third World Liberation Front, was also an FBI informer. […] One of the book’s most interesting stories concerns the FBI’s efforts to withhold information about its assistance to Reagan. In an appendix, Rosenfeld details the lawsuits he filed and won over three decades to acquire the relevant FBI documents. The heroes of this saga include San Francisco federal Judge Marilyn Patel, who ruled that ‘Information regarding acts taken to protect or promote Reagan’s political career, or acts done as political favors to Reagan[,], serve no legitimate law enforcement purpose.’ […] ‘Subversives’ allows us to see this part of our history steadily, whole and for the first time. It is both a major achievement and a fresh opportunity to consider who, exactly, was subverting what.”
The Daily Beast, 8-23-12, “The FBI’s Harassment and Spying on 1960s Students Revealed in 'Subversives' by Seth Rosenfeld," by Michael Kazin:
“I confess that I first opened this stocky book with a skeptical mind. What is there left to learn about Berkeley in the 1960s? […] Happily, Seth Rosenfeld, a veteran investigative reporter from the Bay Area, found a splendid way to refresh this familiar story—with tens of thousands of pages of previously unreleased FBI documents. And his narrative, while lengthy, moves along with vigor, enlivened by deft portraits of major and minor characters and the many battles, literal and figurative, they fought. The files, in their entirety, took Rosenfeld 30 years and four lawsuits to pry out of the Bureau, and it was definitely time well spent.”
Southern California Quarterly, The Historical Society of Southern California, Spring 2014, review by John T. Donovan, lecturer, California State University, Los Angeles:
“Seth Rosenfeld’s Subversives is an impressive work …. Future historians and Reagan biographers need to consult this very fine work.”
American Studies, Volume 52, Number 3, 2013, by Bernard F. Dick:
“Subversives is a monumental achievement …. Subversives should be required reading for the social network generation ….”