Tye’s journalistic chops are on full display here. Most notably, he gained exclusive access to McCarthy’s private papers, housed at Marquette University, the alma mater of his subject. This was a scholarly breakthrough ... a welcome dose of nuance to our understanding of a man who is largely known by the 'ism' that bears his name ... new details abound ... Do any of these revelations fundamentally change how we should think about McCarthy? Probably not. But Tye has produced a compelling and rich biography that will become the new authoritative text on its subject ... a welcome reassessment of McCarthy for the Age of Trump.

Larry Tye gives us the fullest account yet of the crusading junior senator from Wisconsin ... the rigor of his research ensures he goes far beyond the caricature to give us a portrait of nuance and depth ... McCarthy’s personality is important because McCarthyism was not an intellectual project. The senator had no program of ideas, no set of policies he wanted to enact. It was always clear what he was against, but never what he was for, other than Joseph R. McCarthy. And as Demagogue demonstrates, it is not clear that even he knew what his ultimate goal was. It was just more.

Tye captures 'Low Blow Joe' in all his shambolic ingloriousness. A former Boston Globe reporter and author of a well-regarded Bobby Kennedy biography, Tye is a relentless digger, and he had more access than earlier historians — McCarthy’s family papers and medical records were, for the first time, opened to him, and he was able to mine long secret congressional transcripts. The result is an epic expose that may overwhelm readers with its detail but will leave them shaking their heads over the rise and fall of the greatest demagogue in American history, with the possible exception of the current White House incumbent ... Tye calls President Eisenhower 'enabler in chief' and accuses him of a 'policy of appeasement' against McCarthy. This judgment is too harsh. True, Eisenhower was slow to stand up to the senator from Wisconsin, but as historian David Nichols and others have shown, Eisenhower effectively worked behind the scenes to wreck McCarthy, or perhaps better said, enable him to destroy himself.

Tye has researched extensively and consulted more archival material than has been available to any previous McCarthy biographer...All of this research allows Tye to correct the biographical record on a few comparatively minor points, but mere corrections do not provide a ringing defense. McCarthy’s postwar career only makes it more difficult for anyone trying to find a relatable human being underneath the myth ... Public opinion turned against McCarthy, the Senate voted to censure him, and he died at age 48 in 1957. Tye narrates all of this in greater detail and with greater sympathy than any previous biographer, and he recognizes not only the uphill task of even partially defending McCarthy but also the dark associations with the present political moment ... does an impressive job of shedding new light on Joe McCarthy, but the more light is shed, the more repulsive he appears.

Although deeply researched, Tye’s portrait of McCarthy is highly conventional, steeped in the perspective of liberal anti-communism. A recurring theme of Demagogue is that McCarthy represents a familiar strain in American politics, on both the left and the right ... Sometimes Tye’s comparisons between McCarthy and other politicians are facile (Huey Long); sometimes they are more apt (as with Trump, his main target). But though he draws a rich, complex picture of McCarthy’s life, Tye’s emphasis on personality comes at the expense of a deeper analysis of the bipartisan tradition of anti-communism ... The most consequential legacy of McCarthyism is not the return of a bullying, authoritarian personality to high political office but the persistent suppression of left-leaning ideas and policies in the United States by means of red-baiting.

Tye also quotes from transcripts of the executive sessions (that is, hearings closed to the public) of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Government Operations Committee...Tye describes these transcripts—almost nine thousand pages—as 'recently unveiled . . . and never before closely examined.' This is a little misleading. The transcripts were released in 2003, and they have been quoted from extensively, notably by Ted Morgan, in Reds: McCarthyism in Twentieth-Century America...But they are important ... As for Tye’s McCarthy-Trump comparison? He more than makes the case. The likeness is uncanny ... Tye wisely does not propose to draw many lessons for today from the story of McCarthy’s career.

This is a frustrating, fascinating book. Tye is an inelegant writer and a great reporter. He has relentlessly vacuumed up facts from a rich variety of source materials, some of them never before examined. But his narrative skills are limited, so his book often feels like the result of emptying his notebooks. Tye tells us a lot, but too often he walks away from the biggest mysteries of McCarthy’s life and work with what feels like a defeated shrug, not an explanation. So we never get remotely satisfying conclusions about why McCarthy did what he did in his brief, meteoric career ... In this long book the author’s most substantial attempt to explain what lay behind McCarthy’s compulsive lying and demagogic behavior is that he suffered from what a law school friend described as a 'fantastic' inferiority complex 'at the core of [his] personality.' But Tye’s efforts to illuminate that complex seem superficial ... The best chapter in Tye’s book describes how Republicans from Eisenhower to local precinct officials in Wisconsin and nearly every GOP member of the Senate 'enabled' McCarthy’s corrupt crusade against communists in government ... But Washingtonians old enough to remember the McCarthy years will be disappointed by Tye’s failure to capture the atmosphere the senator created in the nation’s capital, which included fear and loathing but also courage and principle.

For many contemporary readers, Joseph McCarthy is a done and dusted relic for the history books, but Tye brings him back to ferocious life ... The firebrand senator’s battles with the press, his political vendettas, his disdain for facts, and his dismissal of his campaign’s human costs are documented in appalling detail, but Tye is an even-handed reporter, tracking the truth of stories advanced by both McCarthy’s devotees and detractors. Though readers may grow to loathe McCarthy, it’s painful to watch his alcohol-soaked deterioration and death. This is a must-read biography for anyone fascinated by American history, and every reader will blanch at its events’ resemblances to today’s fraught political conflicts.

Often previously studied, McCarthy’s career and consequences merit this additional analytical treatment that will satisfy curious readers of history. A definitive biography that will stand the test of time.

... a sure-handed account of the rise and fall of Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy ... The book’s most provocative sections, including a posthumous diagnosis of bipolar disorder and a roundup of 'lurid' claims that noted homophobe McCarthy was gay, add color but lack definitive proof. Though Tye occasionally veers into minutiae (as with the recipe for McCarthy’s venison meatballs), he maintains a brisk pace throughout. The result is a searing and informative portrait of the man and his specific brand of self-aggrandizing demagoguery.

The author concludes his meaty narrative by linking the current occupant of the White House to McCarthy by means of Cohn, 'the flesh-and-blood nexus between the senator and the president,' who taught Trump a cardinal lesson: If you say it often enough, loudly enough, and insistently enough, and frighten your listener while you do so, it becomes true—and, if only for a time, a guarantee of success for any tyrant ... A timely examination of a would-be savior whose name remains a byword for demagoguery.