Chambers Books

A Century of Heroes is a magnificent book that illuminates the heart and soul of the noblest human beings among us: the recipients of the Carnegie Hero Medal. The book celebrates a century of work of the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission that began with recognition of the heroic efforts of miners who died in a 1907 rescue attempt to a daring and successful rescue by two neighbors of a man trapped in his burning house in 2004. Photos, maps, and newspaper articles provide interesting depth to the narrative. Each story is a breathtaking revelation of the incredible potential of nobility that exists in the real world. As we read these stories of true bravery, we should be reminded that the same spirit that motivated the recipients of the Carnegie Hero Medal may also exist in our neighbors, in strangers, in members of our families, and we hope within ourselves as well. With the publication of this beautifully produced work, I believe the light it brings will add to the brilliance of the gems hidden amongst us. In the time of our greatest need, we will discover that we are not really alone, that another person will take a risk to reach out to us.

Charles A. Smith
author: Raising Courageous Kids: Eight Steps to Practical Heroism (Sorin Books, 2004)

In 1904, Andrew Carnegie established the Carnegie Medal of recognize civilians who at great risk to their lives saved or attempted to save someone in grave danger. Carnegie wanted not only to recognize heroism but to help people who hurt themselves badly during the heroic act. Many great stories. I suggest that this book and the new book, Medal of Honor by Peter Collier should be in every home, every school and every library. We need role models and here they are. Both books are highly recommended.

This beautifully produced book is an official publication of the Andrew Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, a foundation started by Carnegie to honor those among us who risk their lives in heroic efforts to selflessly save fellow human beings. Each 'chapter' is devoted to one of these recipients of the Carnegie Hero Medal from 1907 to the present.

The most moving aspect of this wholly satisfying book is the fact that each of these heroes is one among us, a person who when confronted with potential tragedy, forgets self to render help to unknown others. This sort of sensitivity goes unnoticed, or is quickly scanned by the media as the story du jour to spark newspaper sales and then is forgotten. Not so with the Carnegie Hero Medalists. They are here captured with photographs that often include the incident of note, but also speak to the genuine humanity found in the most unexpected places and people.

Wars and blights and political strife are always resources for the finding of heroes. The fact that these heroes may be standing next to us in the simple life of America is deeply touching. Grady Harp, March 05

I wrote the publisher several years ago pleading for them to reprint this gem. It's the best little dictionary I've ever used.

got this in 1976 for 95 cents. it has been the only dictionary I've ever used and the only reason I'm looking for another is that the pages are cracking and yellowing, both from use and the fact that the publisher used groundwood paper.

I have a 25-year old copy of this book, not sure which edition it is, but it's the one with the sort of shiny, orangish-brown cover. Anyway, it really is a great dictionary, for both etymological and other purposes, and it's one of my most useful word reference works. Now out of print for many years, it's worth picking up if you can find a used copy. (You can't have enough dictionaries in your life).

Chihuly Seaforms is a wonder book. The pictures are so beautiful. I make glass jewelry, so this book is eye candy to me.

In Chihuly Seaforms, Artforum art critic Joan Seeman Robinson discusses Dale Chihuly's most exquisite and ethereal series, invoking the spontaneous automatic drawings of the Surrealists, the water lilies of Claude Monet, the action painting of Jackson Pollock, and, most cogently, Henri Matisse's Swimming Pool. Oceanographer and explorer Sylvia Earle, former Chief Scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, finds in Chihuly's evocative Seaforms not only "reflections of skill, passion, teamwork and sheer genius" but also "tributes" to the sea. Together these writers help to illuminate what many consider Chihuly's quintessential series, which was begun in 1980. The saturated color of the 40 full-color pages, including many double-page spreads, conveys the sensuousness of Chihuly's work.
Hardcover 7 1/4" x 9 1/4"
112 pages, 44 color reproductions

I have admired Chihuly's work for many years and finally got to see his work up close and personal. Nothing beats that experience, but having this book to glance through -- with a great cup of tea or glass of wine -- is a very special treat.

Very interesting. The author was a multiple agent for several governments & lived to tell about it. He lived thru terrible times in China as the Japanese were trying to conquer China. His exploits & events are almost beyond belief, & maybe some of them are, but it is still a very good read. Highly recommend.

I read this years ago when i checked it out of the public library. It has been one of my favorite books and captures the heady period of pre-Maoist warlord ridden China before WWII. It reads like a spy "temple of doom" novel with Yarldey shamelessly being the main character but its a great read.

What's interesting is that cryptography played such an important role so far back before computers and data lines. Although not a very technical book for crypto-fans, it captures the spirit of the early codebreakers as misfits and outcast. Just like the Flying Tigers, Yardley gives a very unique look at the role that Americans played in China before the Pacific War. I highly recommend this book if it ever comes back into print.

Hired by Chiang Kai Shek to crack Japanese spy codes (this was after the KMT retreat into the hills), Yardley found himself in the beseiged city of Chungking where EVERYONE IS A SPY (Ted White makes an appearance as a green reporter to whom Yardley teaches poker.) Pre-dating Cold War factionalism, Yardley wrote with a candidness that seems eccentric today (this man had no "ISSUES"); but in his day, he was seen as dangerously indiscreet. His American Black Chamber (located in New York City!) was shut down after a successful run for budget reasons - unemployed and then ostracized when his book on cryptography was banned for revelations of American code cracking methods, Yardley found himself ~temping~ for the "Generalissimo" in the Chinese backwater. An incredibly talented cryptographer and unabashed ladies' man, Yardley provides a charming and lucid slice of that life to which this review cannot do justice. Note that this book is "Hard to Find" - find it! Find its precursor, "Ameri

While the Concerto in C and even the Triple concerto and Fantasia are sometimes heard in the concert hall, on eof Beethovens most beautifully experimental works is his choral fantasy. He originally conceived the piece as a trial to insure that the combination of a chorus and an orchestra in a non-liturgical context would "work." He included rather dramatic and extensive nearly candential solo piano portions to make the work a smorgasboard of timbre and performance oppertunity. It is thanks to the seamlessness of the fantasy that we have the great 9th Symphony to enjoy. A fantastic resource for any student of Musicology

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While the Concerto in C and even the Triple concerto and Fantasia are sometimes heard in the concert hall, on eof Beethovens most beautifully experimental works is his choral fantasy. He originally conceived the piece as a trial to insure that the combination of a chorus and an orchestra in a non-liturgical context would "work." He included rather dramatic and extensive nearly candential solo piano portions to make the work a smorgasboard of timbre and performance oppertunity. It is thanks to the seamlessness of the fantasy that we have the great 9th Symphony to enjoy. A fantastic resource for any student of Musicology

The book is excellent. All the books for the 3.5 Dragonlance setting are excellent. That being said do not order this from amazon. I ordered this book and after they changed the shipping date 3 times I cancelled my order. The final shipping estamte was 4 months after the original order. The estimate on the page says 1-4 weeks, which is not correct. I called and got the usual run around "We don't have the book in our warehouse currently, but we should be getting shipment real soon." In my humble opinion you should not sell books you don't have.

This book is the single greatest book on the Towers of High Sorcery. The details supplied in here are great. Plus with all the back ground info in the PC-era of Krynn just adds to this book. The creature from the Dwarven Nations that was awaken when the Tower of Kal-Thax was going to be raised is explained. I would highly recommend getting this book if at all possible.

I loved this book. It goes into a detailed history of, not only the towers, but of the formation of High Sorcery itself. Many spells, magic items, and artifacts are shown here. (BUT NO BLOODSTONE!!) Anyway, much of the history is taken from The Kingpriest Trilogy. Which is an awesome read. And it also shows the new order's attitudes towards the Grey Mages and Sorcery. It also has an "outline" of a Test for High Sorcery, very cool!

Having said all that: DO NOT BUY THE BOOK HERE!!!!!!!!

Instead go to MargaretWeis.com and buy an autographed copy for cover price! Sovpress.com rules!

Excellent daily devotional for the mature Christian desiring to walk closer to God. Highly recommended.

No hay comparacion con ningún otro libro. Este libro es una belleza del principio hasta el final. No es una lectura que te deja pensando en las margaritas y el verano. Este libro provoca un crecimiento real en la vida de cada cristiano. Si compras solo un libro en tu vida compra este - te aseguro que lo leerás una y otra vez según pasen los anos

Este devocional clásico es para todo aquel quien quiere seguir al Señor Jesús de todo corazón! Esta colección de ensenanzas salió de una vida completamente entregada a la busqueda de agradar a Dios. Oswaldo Chambers murió a la edad joven de 43 anos, pero su esposa recopiló y publicó sus muchas predicas que ella escuchó durante sus 7 años juntos. Para ver mas informacion acerca de este hombre de Dios, pueden mirar a esta pagina web:
http://www.rbc.org/devotionals/my_utmost_for_his_highest/oswald_chambers_1.page

Feather has followed jazz for scores of years primarily as an observer. His observations, braod as well as detailed are invaluable. The photographs are almost enough to make one's most interesting "coffee table book." A must have for jazz buffs.

I can't think of a single REAL JAZZ MUSICIAN who has not read this book...if not they are reading it PRESENTLY!!!!!!!
It is the ultimate reference guide.
When the Jazz community lost Mr. Feather we lost an invaluable friend and supporter of the artform we affectionately refer to as JAZZ.

An indispensable reference for Jazz fans, especially for those interested in pre-Coltrane Jazz, like yours truly.

Sheri Cobb South ventures into new territory from her usual Regency Romances with, instead, a regency set murder mystery.
Julia, Lady Fieldhurst, is discontented in her barren marriage to Viscount Fieldhurst. Teetering on the edge of an affair with Lord Rupert Latham, she decides one night to take that step. Except she definitely chooses the wrong night to invite him in - she and Lord Rupert discover the body of her murdered husband in his bedchamber. Bow Street is immediately summoned. John Pickett, one of their youngest, soon arrives. Investigation and complications ensue.
Julia discovers more about her husband than she had ever imagined. Pickett, torn by duty and inclination, finds himself falling for this dreadfully out-of-reach Lady, who is also looking like the chief suspect. The plot unfolds convincingly and the denouement is not obviously signposted.
I always enjoy this author's books and this is no exception; flows well, effortlessly evokes the period, clearly sketched and sympathetic characters ... What more could one ask for, except a longer book?
Hopefully we will indeed see more of John Pickett and I look forward to it.

Sheri Cobb South can always be relied upon for a really well written novel. I have read her Regency era romances and haved loved every one of them. I give them all 5 stars. This is the first mystery I read by her and give it 4.5 stars. The mystery storyline was very well executed and the characters had detailed personalities. In her books, you always feel you are getting to know real people instead of just fictional characters. I felt this book was like her romances in that you relax into the gentille world she creates. Although this wasn't a romance, it was romantical. I took a half star off for the mystery but this was because I had figured out the killer and motive pretty early on. Still, I had not figured out all the related details and side stories so I was kept fully enthralled until the last page. I hope she continues writing more Regencies, no matter what genre she chooses.

In spite of his recent rejection of her due to her failure to produce an heir Lady Julia Bertstrom Fieldhurst remains faithful to her spouse a Foreign Office bigwig. However, she considers taking a lover for the first time, her escort Rupert Latham, but when they enter her bedchamber they are greeted by the corpse of Lord Fieldhurst lying on her floor with her scissor in his neck.

The media and his superior Mr. Colquhoun immediately assume it is a lover's triangle, but Bow Street Runner John Pickett thinks that is too easy a solution though the paramours had the time to commit the homicide. He focuses on the cousin and cousin-in law as having a monetary motive. The more John digs, the more likely it seems Julia killed her spouse. He begins to wonder if her beauty has spellbound him to ignore her treachery just like his boss thinks. However, he tries a different path involving the Foreign Office and a purloined letter hoping that will prove the clue to lead to the killer.

IN MILADY'S CHAMBER is a terrific Regency police procedural starring a likable Bow Street Runner who like everyone else wonders if beauty has dazzled the beast. John is the focus of the story line as he follows clues that go nowhere except dead ends and begins to doubt his theory that Julia is innocent though he continues to pursue alternate paths other than the lovers' triangle murder. The support cast augments a fabulous historical mystery.

Harriet Klausner

For forty years the accepted establishment view of Whittaker Chambers was that of a fat, rumpled weirdo, obsessed, presumably for some kind of degenerate sexual reasons, with the destruction of Alger Hiss, a man who was in every way his better. Even the publication and excellent sales of his extraordinary memoir, Witness, could not erase that caricature from the minds of the elites. I remember a PBS miniseries about the Hiss case, which must date from the late 70's or early 80's (I checked; it looks like it was, fittingly, broadcast in 1984), which portrayed Hiss as a victim, if not an outright innocent. But then the pendulum began to swing :

-First came the 1978 publication of Allen Weinstein's authoritative book, Perjury : The Hiss-Chambers Case, which convinced most of the holdouts of the guilt of Alger Hiss.

-Then, in 1984, Ronald Reagan posthumously awarded Chambers the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

-Five years later came this collection of the journalism of Whittaker Chambers, Ghosts on the Roof, which began the process of restoring his literary reputation.

-The fall of the Soviet Union unleashed a flood of government secrets from both US and Russian files which exposed both the extent and success of Soviet efforts to penetrate the US government, media and Hollywood in the 30's & 40's and peace groups in the subsequent decades.

-In 1995, the VENONA intercepts were revealed, with their decoded messages confirming that the Rosenbergs and Hiss, among others, had been Soviet agents.

-Finally, the publication in 1997 of the first serious biography, Whittaker Chambers : A Biography by Sam Tanenhaus, and the truly bizarre moment on Meet the Press when Clinton CIA nominee Tony Lake could not bring himself to declare Alger Hiss guilty, even fifty years after the fact, forced a major re-examination of Chambers, his legacy, and the legacy of those who were simply unable to accept his charges no matter the evidence (like Lake and like CNN in their Cold War series).

After all of that, it is perhaps now possible to contemplate Chambers the writer in a somewhat more neutral, less partisan, light. This collection includes everything from political essays to reflections on the Hiss case to movie and book reviews to a set of historical essays on Western Culture written for LIFE. Among the best pieces are a review of Finnegans Wake and a tribute to Joyce on his death; a review of the movie version of Grapes of Wrath, which Henry Luce said was the best film review ever published in TIME; a really scathing review of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged; and the prophetic title essay.

...

The outstanding piece though may well be the one that Teachout chose for the title. Ghosts on the Roof ran in TIME on March 5, 1945, shortly after the Yalta Conference, when the Allies were still basking in the glow of having cooperated to defeat Hitler. With admirable foresight, Chambers pricked this gonfalon bubble. The essay fantasizes that the ghosts of Nicholas and Alexandra and the other murdered Romanovs descend upon the roof of the Livadia Palace at Yalta to watch the goings-on. There they meet Clio, the Muse of History, who has likewise come to observe the Big Three Conference. When History expresses her surprise at finding the Romanovs there, they reveal that they have become fans of Stalin and have converted to Marxism, actually Stalinism. The Tsar and Tsarina explain that Stalin is achieving conquests which even Peter the Great never dared and now come Britain and America as virtual supplicants, unwittingly giving him the opportunity to grab more land in the East in exchange for entering the war with Japan. They share the Marxist belief that in the years following the war, England and the U.S. will collapse because of the internal contradictions of capitalism. Clio tells them that this will not happen, that the years to come will see a conflict between two opposing faiths, leading to "more wars, more revolutions, greater proscriptions, bloodshed and human misery." The Tsarina asks why she does not intervene to avert this, and Clio answers that humans never learn from History and :

Besides, I must leave something for my sister, Melpomene to work on.

Melpomene, Clio's sister, is the Muse of Tragedy. Here, years before he became embroiled in the Hiss case, long before the Cold War started, before the Atomic Age had even dawned, is Whittaker Chambers warning the West of the future it faces and forecasting it uncannily.

These essays, and the many others included here, make for really interesting reading. They reveal Chambers to be both a gifted and a prescient writer. His opinions on the Arts stand up extremely well. His assessments of political situations were as much forty years ahead of their time; particularly perceptive in this regard is one ("Soviet Strategy in the Middle East" [National Review October 26, 1957]) in which he predicted how the Soviets would foster Arab radicalism in the Middle East. All in all, the book serves to add depth and heft to a man who spent almost half a century as a caricature, who was more an undeserving victim of Anti-Anti-Communism than any of those who were blacklisted were "victims" of Anti-Communism. It is altogether fitting that the 20th Century, which Chambers did so much to redeem, ended with his reputation ascendant and those of his opponents in rapid decline.

GRADE : A

This is an excellent anthology of Whittaker Chambers' writings from his moonlighting as a communist journalist to the period after his fall out with the Reds. He follows his subsequent migration to Time and his days penning for the National Review. If you've read and enjoyed his autobiography, Witness, than you will probably enjoy this book.

Read this for graduate American history course. This book is a compendium of Chamber's writing as a Communist, for Time Magazine, and finally for National Review. He is a wonderful prose writer, as you will learn in the short bio below. He was uniquely qualified to write about the struggle between the U.S. and Communism during the Cold War as well. He foresaw the giveaway of Eastern Europe at the Yalta conference in his essay "Ghosts on the Roof." His historical essays are prescient as well. Chamber's was one of the most underestimated figures in the 20th century.

There are a few rare instances in American history when a court case grips the passions of its citizens and serves to define people's political or social beliefs based on which side they believed was in the right. The Sacco and Vanzetti case of the 1920's, the Rosenberg espionage trials of the 1950's, and the O. J. Simpson case of the 1990's were to some extent examples of this phenomena. However, the Hiss perjury trials of 1949-50 were the epitome of this phenomenon, and helped to create a divide between liberals and conservatives in American politics that is still evident to this day. During the Cold War era, one could easily identify the political persuasion of a person simply by asking them whether Hiss or Chambers had told the truth. Simply put, the innocence of Alger Hiss was embraced by liberals. If Hiss, a well respected New Deal advocate and important Roosevelt administration member, had actually been an American Communist spying for the Soviets since the 1930's, then a whole mass of conservative accusations would gain legitimacy, and all of FDR's New Deal programs and his foreign policy decisions at the Yalta Conference would become suspect. In addition, Hiss' guilt would call into question security breaches in the Truman administration, which was already being besieged by questions of "Who lost China." It is against this historical backdrop, that Whittaker Chambers wrote his autobiography Witness. His purpose was to make the first serious explanation of his life and motivations, he became one of America's most contentious figures in the last half of the twentieth-century, Whittaker Chambers.

Chambers' early life is an excellent insight into his psychological profile. Born Vivian Jay Chambers on April 1, 1901, (April Fools Day), he came from a middle-class family of meager means. Add to the mix a father who was bisexual and spent much time away from home, a mother who was paranoid, a grandmother who was insane, and his brother Richard who committed suicide, it is no wonder that you have the formula for a man who developed into a tormented soul and was generally estranged from the world and the people around him. In fact, throughout the book, Chambers illuminates his theme, which is to examine his tormented life at key junctures; such as, when he joined and left the Communist party, when he became a reluctant informer against Alger Hiss. Chambers, who attended Long Island's South Side High School, showed himself to be academically brilliant and an exceptional writer. His parents had big dreams for their son's future. Chambers had dreams too but they did not involve college. Being too young to fight in World War II, he decided to run away with a friend to see the world. They bummed around and worked their way to New Orleans--a city he fell in love with. "Chambers had discovered life as Hugo described it, a kind of prison, harsh and cruel, but lit from within by tender sentiment and from without by sudden shafts of illumination." After a few months of life on the seedy side and running out of money, he returned home and changed his name to Charles Whittaker but went by Whittaker, and within six months entered Columbia University.

A new world was opened to Chambers at Columbia with which he became enamored. He took English composition with Mark Van Doren, who later in life became a Pulitzer Prize winning poet. Van Doren quickly saw in Chambers a very talented writer and later remarked that he was the best writer among his undergraduate students in the 1920's. Chambers especially enjoyed the friendship of fellow students, mostly Jewish, whom he found brilliant such as Lionel Trilling, Meyer Schapiro, and Mortimer J. Adler to name a few. "It was the ernste Menschen" (serious men) "who shaped Chamber's idea, never altered, of the intellectual life." However, academic bliss was not to be for Chambers. He ran afoul of the school administration for a play that he wrote which was deemed profane, and thus became despondent and quit going to class--eventually dropping out and never finishing his university education. He tried to travel to the Soviet Union to help build a new nation on the advice of Van Doren, but he only made it to Germany before returning home. He took a job at the New York Public Library which fed his autodidactic nature, and he started to consort with many women. It is at this stage in Chambers' life in 1925, that he joined the 16,000 member Communist Party of the United States, (CPUSA). "So much the better. He was used to being outnumbered. He had at last found his church."

Chambers paints a portrait of a man who dove into his new life as a Communist with a religious fervor. Chambers became a much-respected writer for several party newspapers, which brought him to the attention of party apparatchiks in 1932. Chambers also met Esther Shemitz a Socialist, and they married in 1931. It was after his marriage that he accepted an assignment to go underground and actively spy for the Party. He was made the courier of the "Ware cell" in Washington D.C., whose mission was to pass sensitive information from Communist party members who had infiltrated various departments of the U. S. government to Boris Bykov, a Soviet intelligence agent. One of the best-placed spies in the "Ware cell" who provided information to Chambers, then using the alias George Crosley, was Alger Hiss. However, Chambers became so disillusioned by Stalin's purges and his nonaggression pact with Hitler, that in 1938, he quit the party. Fearing for his life and his family's safety, Chambers turned informer and confessed all of his activities to Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle, Jr., who forwarded his notes of the meeting to the FBI, which did not follow up on the case until several years later. In addition, an old friend recommended Chambers for a job at Time magazine, which he was elated to have since he was broke. Chambers' literary acumen and zeal for any new project he took on, propelled him to become one of Time's top editors in the 1940's. The magazine's owner Henry Luce said, "Chambers was the best writer Time ever employed." While a writer and editor at Time, Chambers became a most vociferous anti-Communist.

Soon after Stalin reneged on his Yalta Conference promises, a conference that Alger Hiss played a key role in for the State Department, the U. S. government finally moved to ferret out Communist infiltrators in the government. The FBI finally conducted extensive interviews with Chambers. This led to Chambers becoming a government informant in one of America's most dramatic congressional hearings and court cases of the twentieth-century. Chambers' denouncement of Alger Hiss was a stinging indictment of the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, since it cast doubt on American liberals' willingness to conduct espionage investigations during the war years. The contrast between Hiss and Chambers could not be starker. Hiss was a Harvard graduate with impeccable looks and a sterling reputation as a government servant. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. His character references included Justice Felix Frankfurter, and John Foster Dulles, who was to become Secretary of State in the Eisenhower administration. Chambers was an overweight plain looking man who did not dress well, a self-confessed Communist and government informant. Chambers does a good job of retelling the facts of the perjury case and his testimony to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), as well as his extensive cooperation and long and friendly relationship with Richard Nixon. One finds that Chambers is very revealing of his own motivations in his critically acclaimed autobiography Witness, which was written in 1952 after the Hiss perjury trial.

John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, in their book Early Cold War Spies: The Espionage Trials That Shaped American Politics, written in 2006, proved that their was a preponderance of evidence showing that Hiss was a Communist and did commit espionage against the U. S. government. Hiss was not charged with espionage because the statute of limitations protected him. The first Hiss perjury case ended in a hung jury. The second ended on January 20, 1950 with his conviction on two counts of perjury and a sentence to serve five years in jail--he only served forty-four months. Hiss went to his grave denying the charges against him. Haynes and Klehr wrote that he gained much sympathy with the political left again in the wake of the Watergate scandal claiming, "that a government conspiracy had forged evidence and coerced false testimony against him."

Although Chambers was vindicated by Hiss's conviction, he entered into a self-imposed exile on his farm in Maryland. However, for the rest of his life Chambers was visited by a small coterie of friends with whom he enjoyed lengthy discussions about world affairs. "Still convinced he had left the winning side for the losing one, Chambers foretold a global Communist victory. Gloomy as his predictions sounded, he was not devoid of hope." He believed that the primary way the West could defeat Communism was with morality and religion and not militarily. Needing to earn money, Chambers went back to what he did best. He wrote his autobiography Witness, which occupied the top of the New York Times best seller list for several months in 1952, and gave him the financial security he desired. More importantly, Witness was an anti-Communist manifesto that for Chambers described, "a struggle between the force of two irreconcilable faiths--Communism and Christianity." Witness was a powerful exposé of Communist activity in America and changed the life of one future president, Ronald Reagan. Reagan remarked that Witness was his favorite book and pointed to, "Witness as the book that would shape his political outlook." In 1984, President Reagan posthumously awarded Chambers the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The other person of note that Witness made a huge impression on was William F. Buckley, Jr., who befriended Chambers and offered him the position of senior editor of his fledgling conservative magazine National Review. Both men maintained a very friendly relationship up to Chamber's death in 1961. Though Chambers would write articles for the National Review, he turned Buckley's offer down due to his poor health and his growing reluctance of the tactics that the political right was using--especially those of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Near the end of his life, Chambers became friendly with another former Communist and imminent writer, Arthur Koestler. Koestler wrote of Chambers upon receiving news of his death: "I always felt that Whittaker was the most misunderstood person of our time. When he testified he knowingly committed moral suicide to atone for the guilt of our generation. The witness is gone, the testimony will stand."

As a graduate student in philosophy and history, I recommended this book for anyone interested in American history, foreign policy, Cold War history.