ABSTRACT
Whittaker Chambers is one of the most controversial figures in modern American history a former Communist spy who left the party, testified against Alger Hiss before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and wrote a classic autobiography, Witness. Dismissed by some as a crank, reviled by others as a traitor, Chambers still looms as a Dostoevskian figure over three decades after his death in 1961. A man of profound pessimism, rare vision, and remarkable literary talents, his continuing importance was attested to when Ronald Reagan posthumously awarded him the Medal of Freedom in 1984. Ghosts on the Roof, originally published in 1989, brings together more than fifty short stories, essays, articles, and reviews that originally appeared in Time, Life, National Review, Commonweal, The American Mercury, and the New Masses. Included are essays on Karl Marx, Reinhold Niebuhr, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, George Santayana, Dame Rebecca West, Ayn Rand, and Greta Garbo. These show Chambers at his best, as a peerless historian of ideas.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |46 pages
A Member of the Revolution
chapter |19 pages
Can You Make Out Their Voices
chapter |8 pages
You Have Seen the Heads
chapter |10 pages
Our Comrade Munn
chapter |7 pages
The Death of the Communists
part |74 pages
Night Thoughts
chapter |1 pages
Intelligence Report
chapter |6 pages
Night Thoughts
chapter |2 pages
The New Pictures: “Ninotchka”
chapter |3 pages
The Revolt of the Intellectuals
chapter |3 pages
Silence, Exile & Death
chapter |8 pages
Peace & The Papacy
chapter |6 pages
Historian and History Maker
chapter |6 pages
Literary Autolysis
chapter |6 pages
Santayana, Poet of Dissolution
chapter |6 pages
The Anatomy of Fascism
chapter |6 pages
Area of Decision
chapter |7 pages
Crisis
chapter |5 pages
The Ghosts on the Roof
chapter |3 pages
The Old Deal
chapter |2 pages
Christmas 1945
part |74 pages
A Lenten Age
chapter |3 pages
Problem of the Century
chapter |8 pages
Crossroads
chapter |7 pages
In Egypt Land
chapter |9 pages
The Challenge
chapter |6 pages
The Tragic Sense of Life
chapter |10 pages
Circles of Perdition
chapter |9 pages
The Devil
chapter |9 pages
Dr. Crankley’s Children
chapter |11 pages
Faith for a Lenten Age
part |60 pages
The History of Western Culture
chapter |7 pages
The Middle Ages
chapter |6 pages
Medieval Life
chapter |7 pages
The Glory of Venice
chapter |6 pages
The Age of Enlightenment
chapter |10 pages
The Edwardians
chapter |9 pages
Age of Exploration
chapter |13 pages
The Protestant Revolution
part |96 pages
Letters from Westminster