Critics praised Stephen Fox's America's Invisible Gulag as "must reading for all concerned about a repetition and erosion of civil liberties." Now, the award-winning author presents FEAR ITSELF (2007 ed.), a revised and expanded edition of the original, including new chapters on the role of German spies at Pearl Harbor and the forced deportation of Germans from Latin America.

Encouraged by President Franklin Roosevelt, who had warned earlier against giving in to fear, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI rounded up nearly 11,000 people of German ancestry, including Jewish refugees from occupied Europe and over 4,000 residents of Latin America.

Weaving together first-person interviews and government records in this unique study, Fox relates the inside story of internment and exclusion, and suggests answers to many key questions. Among them: What methods did the Justice Department and FBI employ? Why were some Germans nabbed but not others? Why were Jewish refugees and Latin Germans included? Why did internments continue for four years after the end of the war?

"Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth—more than ruin—more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit." —Bertrand Russell

UNCIVIL LIBERTIES powerfully demonstates oral history's ability to challenge common assumptions. While the relocation of Japanese Americans during World War II has been extensively reported, few are aware that the federal government also enacted a program that forced thousands of West Coast Italian and German aliens and their families to leave their homes and jobs. Law-abiding people who had lived in the United States for decades, including some who had sons in the armed forces, were subjected to surveillance and harassment simply because they had never obtained U.S. citizenship. Other Italians, including American citizens whose loyalty was deemed doubtful, were interned or excluded without due process.

"I tell you it was a crazy thing. Whoever thought up that law had screws loose someplace." —Mary Tolomei

In addition to extensive interviews, the book relies on government documents and newspaper accounts to reveal this little-known chapter in American history. The testimonies of those who were the objects of the government's unfounded suspicions and accusations provide a vivid portrait of the times. The painful, long-suppressed memories elicited in these interviews serve as a reminder of the fragility of the civil liberties of all people in a time of national crisis.