Part of the American Stories Series THE ALGER HISS ESPIONAGE CASE follows this famous espionage case from the time Whittaker Chambers appearing before a congressional committee accused Alger Hiss of being a member of the Communist Party to Hiss s conviction for perjury in 1950. The whole affair was arguably the most dramatic verification that Soviet espionage indeed had penetrated the U.S. government and thus gave impetus to that early Cold War phenomenon of McCarthyism. Each book in the American Stories Series is devoted to a salient event in American history. Each brings together evidence about some of those whose lives mattered in the making of our common story. And each text enables students to use primary historical evidence to determine what actually happened why and how those events have shaped the course of America s story. Visit www.newtexts.com for other books in the series.