It was not just individual careers that were destroyed by the rabid anti-communism of the 1940s and 1950s, says McCumber (German, Northwestern U.) but the discipline of philosophy as well. Working with documents from the American Philosophical Association and the American Association of University Professors, he traces a shift from a socially engaged and pragmatic to a socially disengaged philosophy that advocated a constricted scientific view of truth, language, and method. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)