A Show of Misinterpretation

The Show: Another Side of Santamaria’s Movement
by Mark Aarons with John Grenville
Scribe, 2017, 288 pages, $32.99
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The Show is authored by Mark Aarons with the assistance of John Grenville, a one-time enthusiast and activist in, turned fierce opponent of, Bob Santamaria’s anti-communist campaign.

Sometimes we can be let down by our guides. This sweeping, frustrating, sometimes insightful book is marred by a lack of the understanding of and familiarity with issues, context and people that, in contrast, made Aarons’s account of his communist family (The Family Files, reviewed in these pages in September 2010) so compelling. This companion volume is often factually wrong about all three.

Santamaria’s anti-communist campaign went through five phases. First, the Catholic Social Studies Movement was set up by the Australian Catholic bishops in 1941-42 to promote Catholic social thinking and evangelisation, as well, most significantly, to…