What Chambers Can Teach Us Whittaker Chambers is rightly remembered for his pivotal role in the electrifying Alger Hiss spy case. But as Richard Reinsch reminds us in the latest volume in ISI Booksrs" acclaimed Library of Modern Thinkers, Chambers was more than just a government informant; he was a profoundly important thinker who grappled with the nature of modern manrs"s predicaments. Whittaker Chambers: The Spirit of a Counterrevolutionaryshows that Chambersrs"s thought posed-and still poses-a challenge to American conservatism and its typical focus on markets and small government. In his journalism, essays, personal correspondence with the likes of William F. Buckley Jr., and landmark autobiographical tomeWitness, Chambers engaged more broadly, analyzing the fundamental question ofwho man isand the classical and spiritual foundations of civilization. Defying conventional thinking, Reinsch argues that the former Communist spy may have been more right than wrong when he predicted that the West would lose the Cold War. While the Sovietsrs" Communist system did of course collapse, the spiritual and philosophical sickness that Chambers identified, Reinsch suggests, has not been cured.

Richard M. Reinsch II is a program officer at Liberty Fund, Inc. He writes frequently for such publications as Society, Modern Age, the Claremont Review of Books, the University Bookman, National Review Online, and City Journal Online. A lawyer who earned his J.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he lives near Indianapolis.