Whittaker Chambers: A Biography

The classic portrait of the writer and Communist defector whose testimony in the Alger Hiss spy case inaugurated the hysteria of the 1950s Red Scare. Drawing on material from more than 40 archives plus documents long-hidden in the former Soviet Union, Tanenhaus brings Cold War America vividly to life through a cast that includes Soviet spymasters, Communist moles in New Deal Washington, New York writers and journalists—and a pair of ambitious young legislators, Congressman Richard Nixon and Senator Joseph McCarthy, who translated Chambers’s revelations into the politics of paranoia and fear.

Praise & Reviews

“One of the Year’s Ten Best” 
–Time Magazine

“One of the Year’s Best”
—Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist

“One of the most dazzling biographies in recent history”
—USA Today

“Remarkable . . . The kind of writing that can keep you propped up against your pillow late at night.”
—The New York Times

“An epic tale, rich in pity and terror, with a great theme: the human cost of political morality . . . . biography at its best.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“Splendid . . . Sam Tanenhaus has given Chambers the best tribute of all—a firm place in history.”
—David Oshinsky, Washington Post Book World

“Marvelous . . . One of the best books ever written about the Communist experience . . . .As compelling as a good novel.”
—Hilton Kramer, The New Criterion