History & Heritage: The Life & Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy, Larry Tye (rescheduled due to Hurricane Ian)

Demagogue is Larry Tye’s most recent biography of Senator Joe McCarthy. Tye speaks about how the senator learned from demagogues who came before and was the archetype for those who followed; why his family gave Tye the revealing trove of professional and personal papers that had been under lock and key for 60 years; and how his never-seen medical records offered a novel lens into how he lived and died. 

Larry Tye, who graduated from Brown University, was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1993-94. He taught journalism at Boston University, Northeastern, and Tufts. In addition to his writing, Tye runs the Boston-based Health Coverage Fellowship, which helps the media do a better job reporting on critical issues like public health and pandemics, mental health and the health impacts of climate change, and racial, ethnic and gender disparities in health care.