Want to know what books Harvey Klehr recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Harvey Klehr's favorite book recommendations of all time.
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Engineering Communism is the fascinating story of Joel Barr and Alfred Sarant, dedicated Communists and members of the Rosenberg spy ring, who stole information from the United States during World War II that proved crucial to building the first advanced weapons systems in the USSR. On the brink of arrest, they escaped with KGB’s help and eluded American intelligence for decades.Drawing on extensive interviews with Barr and new archival evidence, Steve Usdin explains why Barr and Sarant became spies, how they obtained military secrets, and how FBI blunders led to their escape.... more Engineering Communism is the fascinating story of Joel Barr and Alfred Sarant, dedicated Communists and members of the Rosenberg spy ring, who stole information from the United States during World War II that proved crucial to building the first advanced weapons systems in the USSR. On the brink of arrest, they escaped with KGB’s help and eluded American intelligence for decades.Drawing on extensive interviews with Barr and new archival evidence, Steve Usdin explains why Barr and Sarant became spies, how they obtained military secrets, and how FBI blunders led to their escape. He chronicles their pioneering role in the Soviet computer industry, including their success in convincing Nikita Khrushchev to build a secret Silicon Valley.The book is rich with details of Barr’s and Sarant’s intriguing andexciting personal lives, their families, as well as their integration into Russian society. Engineering Communism follows the two spies through Sarant’s death and Barr’s unbelievable return to the United States. less 
Harvey KlehrAt the time the Rosenbergs were arrested, suspicion also fell on some of Julius’s friends who were engineers. And we now know that he encouraged a number of them to spy for him. At the time of the Rosenberg case two of those engineers vanished. One of them dropped out of sight and the other fled the United States and was never found. Steve Usdin found out what happened to both of them. They... (Source)
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'The Forsaken' is the true story of the Americans who, to escape the privations and hopelessness of the Great Depression back home, emigrated to Stalinist Russia in pursuit of a brighter future. They found themselves in the midst of a massacre. more 'The Forsaken' is the true story of the Americans who, to escape the privations and hopelessness of the Great Depression back home, emigrated to Stalinist Russia in pursuit of a brighter future. They found themselves in the midst of a massacre. less Harvey KlehrThis is a fairly recent book which is wonderful and very depressing. It is an account of a large number of Americans who were living in Russia in the 1930s. Many of them had gone there to work. Others had been taken by their parents who had wanted to help build socialism. And many of these people were caught up in the purge trials and hundreds of them were killed. Tzouliadis oriented his book... (Source)
Lyubov VinogradovaI’m sure this will be of interest to a Western audience. Its subject is those former American citizens who were made to give up American citizenship in exchange for Soviet citizenship. (Source)
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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... more 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. less Harvey KlehrWhittaker Chambers was a key figure in the first major post-World War II spy case. He was a disillusioned communist who is a fascinating man and one of the attractions of this book is that it really gives Chambers his due. He was a very talented writer and a much tormented man who had become a Communist as a young man in college in the 1920s and he went into the Communist Party underground in the... (Source)
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Ronald Radosh, Joyce Milton | 4.26
This highly acclaimed book—hailed as the definitive account of the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg case—now includes a new introduction that discusses the most recent evidence. It provides information from the Khrushchev and Molotov memoirs, the Venona papers, and material contained in a Discovery Channel documentary that was first aired in March 1997. more This highly acclaimed book—hailed as the definitive account of the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg case—now includes a new introduction that discusses the most recent evidence. It provides information from the Khrushchev and Molotov memoirs, the Venona papers, and material contained in a Discovery Channel documentary that was first aired in March 1997. less Harvey KlehrThe Rosenbergs were executed in the early 1950s on the charge of spying for the Soviet Union, particularly for atomic espionage, and their case attracted worldwide attention at the time, both because they asserted their innocence and because here was this couple that nobody had ever heard of when they were arrested. Then they were convicted of this horrible crime and executed, leaving their two... (Source)
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5
This companion volume to The Roots of American Communism brings to completion what the author describes as the essence of the relationship of American Communism to Soviet Russia in the first decade after the Bolsheviks seized power. The outpouring of new archive materials makes it plain that Draper's premise is direct and to the point: The communist movement "was transformed from a new expression of American radicalism to the American appendage of a Russian revolutionary power." Each generation must find this out for itself, and no better guide exists than the work of master historian... more This companion volume to The Roots of American Communism brings to completion what the author describes as the essence of the relationship of American Communism to Soviet Russia in the first decade after the Bolsheviks seized power. The outpouring of new archive materials makes it plain that Draper's premise is direct and to the point: The communist movement "was transformed from a new expression of American radicalism to the American appendage of a Russian revolutionary power." Each generation must find this out for itself, and no better guide exists than the work of master historian Theodore Draper. American Communism and Soviet Russia is acknowledged to be the classic, authoritative history of the critical formative period of the American Communist Party. Based on confidential minutes of the top party committees, interviews with party leaders, and public records, this book carefully documents the influence of the Soviet Union on the fundamental nature of American Communism. Draper's reflections on that period in this edition are a fitting capstone to this pioneering effort. less Harvey KlehrThat is a fairly old book now. I read it many, many years ago at graduate school. Theodore Draper was the leading light among historians of American Communism. (Source)
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