Whittaker Chambers

Whittaker Chambers PDF

Author: Sam Tanenhaus

Publisher: Modern Library

Published: 2011-04-20

Total Pages: 656

ISBN-13: 0307789268

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Whittaker Chambers is the first biography of this complex and enigmatic figure. Drawing on dozens of interviews and on materials from forty archives in the United States and abroad--including still-classified KGB dossiers--Tanenhaus traces the remarkable journey that led Chambers from a sleepy Long Island village to center stage in America's greatest political trial and then, in his last years, to a unique role as the godfather of post-war conservatism. This biography is rich in startling new information about Chambers's days as New York's "hottest literary Bolshevik"; his years as a Communist agent and then defector, hunted by the KGB; his conversion to Quakerism; his secret sexual turmoil; his turbulent decade at Time magazine, where he rose from the obscurity of the book-review page to transform the magazine into an oracle of apocalyptic anti-Communism. But all this was a prelude to the memorable events that began in August 1948, when Chambers testified against Alger Hiss in the spy case that changed America. Whittaker Chambers goes far beyond all previous accounts of the Hiss case, re-creating its improbably twists and turns, and disentangling the motives that propelled a vivid cast of characters in unpredictable directions. A rare conjunction of exacting scholarship and narrative art, Whittaker Chambers is a vivid tapestry of 20th century history.

Whittaker Chambers

Whittaker Chambers PDF

Author: Richard M. Reinsch

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2023-08-22

Total Pages: 117

ISBN-13: 168451665X

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What Chambers Can Teach Us Whittaker Chambers is rightly remembered for his pivotal role in the electrifying Alger Hiss spy case. But as Richard Reinsch reminds us in this volume of the acclaimed Library of Modern Thinkers series, Chambers was more than just a government informant; he was a profoundly important thinker who grappled with the nature of modern man's predicaments. Whittaker Chambers: The Spirit of a Counterrevolutionary shows that Chambers's thought posed—and still poses—a challenge to American conservatism and its typical focus on markets and small government. In his journalism, essays, personal correspondence with the likes of William F. Buckley Jr., and landmark autobiographical tome Witness, Chambers engaged more broadly, analyzing the fundamental question of who man is and the classical and spiritual foundations of civilization. Defying conventional thinking, Reinsch argues that the former Communist spy may have been more right than wrong when he predicted that the West would lose the Cold War. While the Soviets' Communist system did of course collapse, the spiritual and philosophical sickness that Chambers identified, Reinsch suggests, has not been cured.

Witness

Witness PDF

Author: Whittaker Chambers

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2014-12-09

Total Pages: 718

ISBN-13: 1621573761

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#1 New York Times bestseller for 13 consecutive weeks! "As long as humanity speaks of virtue and dreams of freedom, the life and writings of Whittaker Chambers will ennoble and inspire." - PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN "One of the dozen or so indispensable books of the century..." - GEORGE F. WILL "Witness changed my worldview, my philosophical perceptions, and, without exaggeration, my life." - ROBERT D. NOVAK, from his Foreward "Chambers has written one of the really significant American autobiographies. When some future Plutarch writes his American Live, he will find in Chambers penetrating and terrible insights into America in the early twentieth century." - ARTHUR SCHLESINGER JR. "Chambers had a gift for language....to call Chambers an activist or Witness a political event is to say Dostoevsky was a criminologist or Crime and Punishment a morality tract." - WASHINGTON POST "Chambers was not just the witness against Alger Hiss, but was also one of th articulators of the modern conservative philosophy, a philosophy that has something to do with restoring the spiritual values of politics." - SAM TANENHAUS, author of Whittaker Chambers "One of the few indispensable autobiographies ever written by an American - and one of the best written, too." - HILTON KRAMER, The New Criterion First published in 1952, Witness is the true story of Soviet spies in America and the trial that captivated a nation. Part literary effort, part philosophical treatise, this intriguing autobiography recounts the famous Alger Hiss case and reveals much more. Chambers' worldview and his belief that "man without mysticism is a monster" went on to help make political conservatism a national force. Regnery History's Cold War Classics edition is the most comprehensive version of Witness ever published, featuring forewords collected from all previous editions, including discussions from luminaries William F. Buckley Jr., Robert D. Novak, Milton Hindus, and Alfred S. Regnery.

Perjury

Perjury PDF

Author: Allen Weinstein

Publisher: Random House (NY)

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 684

ISBN-13:

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On August 3, 1948, "Time" magazine editor Whittaker Chambers made a stunning allegation before the House Un-American Activities Committee: Alger Hiss, former high-ranking State Department official, had served with him in the Communist underground. Hiss's defense was the gripping story of its day, and the question of his guilt remains an enigma. This book provides fascinating insights into the case and into the American political life of the 1930s and 1940s. of photos.

The Conservative Turn

The Conservative Turn PDF

Author: Michael Kimmage

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-07-31

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 0674054121

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The Conservative Turn tells the story of postwar America's political evolution through two fascinating figures: Lionel Trilling and Whittaker Chambers, who went on to intellectual prominence, sharing the questions, crises, and challenges of their generation. Kimmage argues that the divergent careers of these two men exemplify important developments in postwar American politics: the emergence of modern conservatism and the rise of moderate liberalism.

Odyssey of a Friend

Odyssey of a Friend PDF

Author: Whittaker Chambers

Publisher: Regnery Publishing

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13:

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Chambers emerged from the communist Party, but did not surrender the conviction, by which his very bones had been virtually irradiated, that apocalypse menaced. Hugh Kenner

Notes from the Underground

Notes from the Underground PDF

Author: Whittaker Chambers

Publisher:

Published: 1997-09

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13:

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Ralph de Toledano, the Newsweek reporter covering the Hiss trial (technically for perjury), quickly became close friends with Chambers. The two men began exchanging letters in 1949 and continued for the rest of Chambers's life.

Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers, and the Schism in the American Soul

Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers, and the Schism in the American Soul PDF

Author: Patrick Swan

Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781882926916

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Marking the 50th anniversary of the publication of Whittaker Chambers's spiritual autobiography "Witness, " Swan anthologizes 23 of the best essays ever written on Chambers and Alger Hiss by Leslie Fiedler, Arthur Koestler, and William F. Buckley Jr. These writers comment on the two men while expressing their own divergent opinions on the nature of communism (and anticommunism), liberalism, and many other issues.

Exit Right

Exit Right PDF

Author: Daniel Oppenheimer

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2016-02-02

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 1416597174

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A provocative look at the evolution of America’s political soul through the lives of six political figures who abandoned the left and joined the right—“thoughtful…engaging…political history at a very high level…and the pages fly by” (The New Republic). From the 1950s to the early 2000s millions of Americans moved left to right politically—a shift that forever changed the country. In Exit Right, Daniel Oppenheimer takes us from the height of the Communist Party’s popularity in America in the 1920s and 30s, through the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, and up through conservative resurgence of the 80s, before ending with 9/11 and the dawn of the Iraq War. Throughout, he tells the stories of six major political figures whose lives spanned these turbulent times and whose changing politics reshaped the American soul: Whittaker Chambers, James Burnham, Ronald Reagan, Norman Podhoretz, David Horowitz, and Christopher Hitchens. As he maps out the paths that these six individuals have taken to conservatism, Oppenheimer explores the questions of why and how we come to believe politically at all. How do we come to trust one set of truths, or one set of candidates, or associate with one crowd of people—over all other alternatives? Exit Right is an “absorbing” (The Atlantic) look at the roots of American politics. This is a book that will resonate with readers on the left and the right—as well as those stuck somewhere in the middle. Through six dramatic transformations of six enthralling characters, Oppenheimer “writes with the assurance and historical command of someone who has been thinking about his topic for a long time” (The New Yorker).

The Witness and the President

The Witness and the President PDF

Author: K. Alan Snyder

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2017-05-30

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 9781546948865

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Whittaker Chambers and Ronald Reagan--two conservative icons. Both hold a special place in the minds and hearts of political and cultural conservatives, and their names are linked in the history of American conservatism. Reagan owes a huge debt to Chambers's reflections on communism and freedom, with his autobiography, Witness, serving almost as the midwife for Reagan's political rebirth. He partially repaid that debt when he awarded Chambers with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984. The two men, though, were opposites in their temperaments and predictions about the future of freedom. Chambers was so gloomy about the prospects for the free world that when he deserted communism, he stated to his wife, "You know, we are leaving the winning world for the losing world." Reagan, however, never lost his faith that America's future was bright, and that the Western world could help promote liberty in nations that were trapped by tyranny and spiritual darkness. Which of these two icons was closer to the truth? This book examines and contrasts the Chambers pessimism with the Reagan optimism and seeks to answer that question.