Whittaker Chambers, Sam Tanenhaus
Whittaker Chambers, Sam Tanenhaus
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Whittaker Chambers
A Biography

Author: Sam Tanenhaus

Narrator: Edward Lewis

Unabridged: 18 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/19/2009

Synopsis

This first ever biography of the enigmatic Whittaker Chambers draws on materials from forty archives, including stillclassified KGB dossiers, to trace the remarkable journey that led Chambers to center stage in America's greatest political trial. This complex portrait is rich in startling new information about Chambers' years as a Communist agent and then defector, hunted by the KGB; his conversion to Quakerism; his secret sexual turmoil; and his turbulent decade at Time magazine, where he rose from obscurity to transform the magazine into an oracle of apocalyptic antiCommunism. But all this was a prelude to Chambers' memorable testimony against Alger Hiss in the spy case that changed America. Tanenhaus recreates the Hiss case in all its improbable twists and turns, disentangling the motives that propelled a vivid cast of characters in unpredictable directions.

About Sam Tanenhaus

Sam Tanenhaus is the editor of both the New York Times Book Review and the Week in Review section of the Times. From 1999 to 2004, he was a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, where he wrote often on politics. His work has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the New Republic, and many other publications. Tanenhaus's book Whittaker Chambers: A Biography won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Christopher

Sam Tanenhaus untangles the messy life of Whittaker Chambers, one of the 20th Century's unlikeliest figures. A struggling writer and autodidact from New York, brilliant but tortured by a horrific childhood (a closeted gay father, a neurotic mother, an insane grandmother and a suicidal brother), he d......more

Goodreads review by Lee Ann

Wow. This is a book to re-read. It is thorough, slow and in-depth. ST covers not just the facts but the implications of WC's life. I have read Witness and was blown away. It has been called the greatest autobiography of the 20th century and deservedly so. ST highlighted several aspects of Witness th......more

Goodreads review by Eric_W

Where else can you find elements of a spy story, good guys against bad guys, weird characters, and cognitive dissonance all rolled into one? The Hiss/Chambers case riveted the nation, laid the groundwork for Nixon's rise, and epitomized national phobia. Chambers, who died comparatively young at age......more

Goodreads review by ALLEN

An intriguing public figure deserves an excellent biography, and in Sam Tanenhaus's WHITTAKER CHAMBERS (1997), we are in the realm of the very best. With massive documentation and succinct yet elegant prose, Tanenhaus profiles the famous writer-turned-Soviet-spy-turned-informer with all his warts an......more

Goodreads review by Charles

Almost five stars; call it 4.75 stars. A deeply pleasurable read, thanks to Sam Tanenhaus' lean, propulsive prose. Rarely do I read a biography so full of facts that still refuses to get bogged down in them (even though this is of the genre that has the subject being born on the first page. Gimme co......more

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