I have used the very fine Pimsleur course for another language (Hebrew) but, in looking for a course that costs a fraction of the Pimsleur price, I struck gold with the Berlitz Basic Spanish. There are 24 lessons, each about 7 minutes long. The lessons are divided into scenes on three audio tapes. The lessons are taught entirely in Spanish. It is amazing how well this works by putting the conversation in context and by using a guidebook. By going through each lesson several times and doing the exercises in the book, you learn Spanish in an easy and enjoyable manner, Having used Pimsleur, I believe that dollar for dollar, the Berlitz method compares well. You can't go wrong with either {Pimsleur or Berlitz) but, for less than 30 bucks, your money is very well spent with the Berlitz basic Spanish. The big difference between these two fine methods (Berlitz & Pimsleur) is the following: (1) Pimsleur has a series of 32 longer lessons in which the language is taught using both English and the language you are learning on the tape. The Pimsleur lessons are about a half hour long. (2) The series of Berlitz lessons are about 7 or so minutes long and no English is spoken. The accompanying book provides English translation in marginal notes for new words that are introduced into the vocabulary. Both programs are effective but Berlitz is a great bargain.

As a relatively new A.P. U.S.History teacher, I am faced with providing the "most bang for the buck" to my high school juniors in preparing them for the spring A.P. exam. "The Story of America" has provided me with excellent backup for the standard text I use in the A.P. class. It is so helpful that I have recommended it to my supervisor as a supplementary text for all of our International Baccalaureate students in future years. The book provides finely detailed stories and backgrounds on many topics that are barely touched on in our standard text. I don't want to belabor the readers with examples I find fascinating, but I sincerely believe that any serious History teacher would find this work immensely helpful.

I finished reading this book last week and came away totally convinced that Alger Hiss was a spy for the former Soviet Union. Chambers is depicted in this book as a very unlikely hero for the Anti-Communist cause in the late 1940's. The book is very detailed and it leads you through the entire investigation process that took place immediately after Whittaker Chambers publicly accused Alger Hiss of being a Communist spy in the 1930's. There was much corroborating evidence through eye-witness testimony before the Congressional committee(HUAC) and in the 2 trials detailed in this book. It was at times quite tedious and extremely detailed, which I found to be rather boring. But history does not work in the fast pace people are accustomed to in the movies and on television. Espionage is a dangerous game to play and any sudden moves can get you killed. Most spies always try to hide in plain sight, which Alger Hiss was able to do quite well for many years. The end of the Cold War and the opening of the secret files in the KGB and VENONA transcripts allowed the author unprecedented access to evidence which proved devastating to Hiss's claims that he was not a spy after getting out of prison many years ago. Thank God for the end of the Cold War! Otherwise, we may never have known the whole story of Hiss's espionage activities. A great book if you have patience with all the details.

By the time I reached the end of this fascinating work, I was convinced of Hiss's guilt. However, the book is tedious in spots, and the reader occasionally finds himself drowning in the overwhelming documentation that the author plows through in such detail. Weinstein deserves praise for never succumbing to bias as he explores every possible detail of this case which became a political fault line. Having never read a book on this trial, I was struck by the free ride which the mainstream media appears to have given Alger Hiss over the years. Having neither the law nor the facts on his side, Hiss decided to destroy his opponent, Whittaker Chambers. Hiss never offered even a ghost of an explanation for the evidence that accumulated against him. While there were many undeserving victims of the witch hunt for communists during the 1950's, Weinstein proves that Alger Hiss was not among them.

In 1948, lawyer Alger Hiss made what was arguably the biggest mistake of his life: he sued Whittaker Chambers. Chambers had publicly accused Hiss of having been a Communist Party member, Soviet spy, and agent of influence. Unfortunately for Hiss, Chambers had saved some of the material Hiss passed him for transmission to Soviet Military Intelligence. Alger Hiss ended up in prison, was disbarred, and spent the rest of his life trying to convince people a fantastic conspiracy had framed him.

In 1971, Hiss made a mistake almost as large: he let an honest man look at his defense files. Historian Allen Weinstein had previously believed that Hiss was innocent. But when he read what Hiss's lawyers said in private, and what FBI agents had written J. Edgar Hoover, he found there was no reasonable doubt possible anymore. Hiss had spied for the Soviets, and Chambers had usually told the truth to the best of his ability. Chambers had sometimes lied, but only when he attempted to minimize Hiss's guilt -- and his own, for Chambers had secrets about himself to protect, and a well founded fear of being the messenger killed for bearing bad news.

PERJURY is a fascinating account of two complex men, best friends who became mortal enemies when one split with Stalinism, and the other remained faithful. The lives of Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers would have been interesting even if they had never met or publicly clashed. Their long duel caught them in "A tradegdy of History," as Chambers put it. PERJURY tells that story better than anyone before or since. It's a masterpiece of historical detective work.

When it was published originally, all but the die hard apologists for Stalinism conceded Hiss's guilt. The new edition has recently released material from the National Security Agency's Venona decryptions, and the KGB's Moscow files that destroy even the unreasonable doubts. Highest recommendation.

Weinstein, with the aid of Alexander Vassiliev, was able to gain access to a fairly large number of KGB records from the 1930s through the 1940s. THe evidence from the KGB archives (cross-referenced against US and VERONA documents) show a fairly extensive spy network within the US during the Depression and World War II. The presence of this network was noted and suspected by people such as J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI during the Roosevelt Administration, and it led authorities like Hoover to begin constructing the machinery of what would later be called McCarthyism (for more on this, see Ellen Schrecker's "Many Are the Crimes"). Weinstein's copious notes illustrate this network's very real existence, including such people as Alger Hiss, Whitaker Chambers, and the Rosenbergs. (Not Oppenheimer, BTW)

I stated this was for professional historians -- if you're a casual reader of Cold War or spy history, you may like this book, but I doubt it. The narrative flow is poor to say the least -- there's scarcely any "flow" here at all. I'm not sure if the book was rushed to print or if the nature of the material did not lend itself to good writing; whatever, the book is poorly written. Older ideologues of both Left and Right may be interested; a lot of bad feelings have permeated down through the years due to disagreements over the extent of Soviet spying and McCarthyism. I don't think anyone can come away claiming victory here. Conservatives were correct in insisting that the Communist spy network existed, but at the wrong time. (By the time McCarthyism came around, the spy ring had collapsed, as Weinstein shows.) Liberals who downplayed the existence of the spies were wrong, at least from about 1932-1945, but can also take solace in the fact that the numerous spies seemed to cause no serious damage of any kind. (Even the Rosenbergs, at most, hastened the Soviet's atomic achievement by only a year or two.) Most American communist spies were Jews motivated to support the U.S.S.R. in the coming struggle against Fascism -- understandable; most fell away from the Soviets following the Soviet-Nazi Pact. The extent of spying by the Soviets in no way justified the abuses of McCarthyism, although the evidence Weinstein shows certainly illuminates why that era took on the edge it did.

I reviewed this book in 1999, and gave it three stars. Over time, I've decided it was better than I first thought, and came back here to up it to four...

This book should be required reading for the left wing sympathizers who still maintain the fiction of: a. Alger Hiss was innocent, b. Elia Kazan is a bad guy, c. The Rosenbergs were innocent, d.the Communist Party of the United States was not affiliated with the Kremlin, e. Whittaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley were lying. This history, illuminated by KGB files, uncovers the lies and deceit of the fellow travelers and communists who claimed their innocence. They committed treason and should be ashamed of it.