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12/1/2015BookFilter | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=b8534873-fb2e-4938-9f44-010a0cca5ea3&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/3HomeTop Picks: All BooksWe Believe the Children
A Moral Panic in the 1980s
MoreWe Believe the Childrenby Richard BeckPrice: $26.99(Hardcover)Published: August 04, 2015Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)From the Publisher:A brilliant, disturbing portrait of the dawn of the culture wars,when America started to tear itself apart with doubts, wildallegations, and an unfounded fear for the safety of children.During the 1980s in California, New Jersey, New York, Michigan,Massachusetts, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Ohio, and elsewhere,day care workers were arrested, charged, tried, and convicted ofcommitting horrible sexual crimes against the children they caredfor. These crimes, social workers and prosecutors said, had goneundetected for years, and they consisted of a brutality and sadismthat defied all imagining. The dangers of babysitting services andday care centers became a national news media fixation. Of themany hundreds of people who were investigated in connectionwith day care and ritual abuse cases around the country, some190 were formally charged…Rate This Book|Rate/ReviewAdd To BookshelfGet This BookGo to your preferred retailer, click to choose a format and you' ll be taken directly to their site whereyou can get this book.BookFilter
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Personalize / Add More ChoicesWhat We SayA compelling, eye-opening and yes, jaw-droppingly funny look at the wave of court cases surrounding the day carechild molestation panic epitomized by the McMartin case. You can't help laughing at some of the outrageous claimsmade during the "Satanic cults are molesting our children" hysteria that swept the US during the 1980s. It's soberingwhen you realize how seriously the patently absurd claims were taken: TV networks ran primetime specials (helloGeraldo Rivera!), newspapers and magazines ran endless wide-eyed exposes, activist groups were formed, lawswere passed and lives were destroyed (and political careers made) as law enforcement went literally crazy,desperately looking for evidence -- any evidence -- of the baby killing, kiddie porn selling, child molesting,international conspiracies led by Satanic cults that were apparently present in towns large and small all across thecountry. In Beck's well-researched, fascinating work, he begins with the McMartin trial, the longest trial in US historyand one which was launched on the fevered imaginations of a divorced mother with severe emotional issues. Manyremember the name McMartin and Beck covers it with scrupulous care. But he also covers some of the dozens if nothundreds of similar cases that spread like wildflower. He shows the bullying and pressure that led very youngchildren to offer incredible tales of absurd proportions, tales that changed so often you can't believe any case made itto court. Naturally, you wonder "How could this happen?" It seems like a bizarre, one-off phenomenon, a feverdream. But Beck shows precisely how it happened then, how it has happened before and how it will happen again.He brilliantly marshals information on changes in psychiatry, changes in law enforcement, changes in politics andchanges in society that led to conditions in which these panics occurred. And while he offers a prescription at thevery end, Beck's analysis leads you to understand it's almost inevitable some new panic unhinged from facts willstrike again. -- Michael GiltzLessWhat Others Say“Intellectually nimble… [Beck’s] argument should prove far more enduring than all the lies and self-deceptions, socredulously believed in the 1980s, that this book does a devil of a job correcting.” —New York Times“[Thirty] years ago America was described as experiencing an ‘epidemic’ of sexual abuse in day care. Richard Beck,an editor at N+1, does a herculean job of investigating why this happened in his absorbing book We Believe TheChildren.” —Washington Post“In this sharp, sensitive debut [Beck] deftly examines all the forces that came together in this strange moment in ourhistory.” —Boston Globe“Beck argues, convincingly, that the sexual revolution of the ’60s and ’70s provoked a conservative backlash in the’80s, fueling parental paranoia. The social and political conditions at the time set the stage for the most destructivemoral panic since the Salem witch trials.” —The Daily Beast“N+1 editor Beck surveys the wild allegations, surreal trials, and sensational atmosphere of a child abuse panic thatgripped the United States during the 1980s, while lucidly analyzing…
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=b8534873-fb2e-4938-9f44-010a0cca5ea3&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/3HomeTop Picks: All BooksWe Believe the Children
A Moral Panic in the 1980s
MoreWe Believe the Childrenby Richard BeckPrice: $26.99(Hardcover)Published: August 04, 2015Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)From the Publisher:A brilliant, disturbing portrait of the dawn of the culture wars,when America started to tear itself apart with doubts, wildallegations, and an unfounded fear for the safety of children.During the 1980s in California, New Jersey, New York, Michigan,Massachusetts, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Ohio, and elsewhere,day care workers were arrested, charged, tried, and convicted ofcommitting horrible sexual crimes against the children they caredfor. These crimes, social workers and prosecutors said, had goneundetected for years, and they consisted of a brutality and sadismthat defied all imagining. The dangers of babysitting services andday care centers became a national news media fixation. Of themany hundreds of people who were investigated in connectionwith day care and ritual abuse cases around the country, some190 were formally charged…Rate This Book|Rate/ReviewAdd To BookshelfGet This BookGo to your preferred retailer, click to choose a format and you' ll be taken directly to their site whereyou can get this book.BookFilter
12/1/2015BookFilter | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=b8534873-fb2e-4938-9f44-010a0cca5ea3&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&2/3
Personalize / Add More ChoicesWhat We SayA compelling, eye-opening and yes, jaw-droppingly funny look at the wave of court cases surrounding the day carechild molestation panic epitomized by the McMartin case. You can't help laughing at some of the outrageous claimsmade during the "Satanic cults are molesting our children" hysteria that swept the US during the 1980s. It's soberingwhen you realize how seriously the patently absurd claims were taken: TV networks ran primetime specials (helloGeraldo Rivera!), newspapers and magazines ran endless wide-eyed exposes, activist groups were formed, lawswere passed and lives were destroyed (and political careers made) as law enforcement went literally crazy,desperately looking for evidence -- any evidence -- of the baby killing, kiddie porn selling, child molesting,international conspiracies led by Satanic cults that were apparently present in towns large and small all across thecountry. In Beck's well-researched, fascinating work, he begins with the McMartin trial, the longest trial in US historyand one which was launched on the fevered imaginations of a divorced mother with severe emotional issues. Manyremember the name McMartin and Beck covers it with scrupulous care. But he also covers some of the dozens if nothundreds of similar cases that spread like wildflower. He shows the bullying and pressure that led very youngchildren to offer incredible tales of absurd proportions, tales that changed so often you can't believe any case made itto court. Naturally, you wonder "How could this happen?" It seems like a bizarre, one-off phenomenon, a feverdream. But Beck shows precisely how it happened then, how it has happened before and how it will happen again.He brilliantly marshals information on changes in psychiatry, changes in law enforcement, changes in politics andchanges in society that led to conditions in which these panics occurred. And while he offers a prescription at thevery end, Beck's analysis leads you to understand it's almost inevitable some new panic unhinged from facts willstrike again. -- Michael GiltzLessWhat Others Say“Intellectually nimble… [Beck’s] argument should prove far more enduring than all the lies and self-deceptions, socredulously believed in the 1980s, that this book does a devil of a job correcting.” —New York Times“[Thirty] years ago America was described as experiencing an ‘epidemic’ of sexual abuse in day care. Richard Beck,an editor at N+1, does a herculean job of investigating why this happened in his absorbing book We Believe TheChildren.” —Washington Post“In this sharp, sensitive debut [Beck] deftly examines all the forces that came together in this strange moment in ourhistory.” —Boston Globe“Beck argues, convincingly, that the sexual revolution of the ’60s and ’70s provoked a conservative backlash in the’80s, fueling parental paranoia. The social and political conditions at the time set the stage for the most destructivemoral panic since the Salem witch trials.” —The Daily Beast“N+1 editor Beck surveys the wild allegations, surreal trials, and sensational atmosphere of a child abuse panic thatgripped the United States during the 1980s, while lucidly analyzing…