“The book will surely be controversial and subject to attack from all sides, for its author insists that we must hold McCarthy’s enemies and victims to the same standards to which we hold him. McCarthy himself was as much a phenomenon as McCarthyism.” 

“A combative corrective to the view of McCarthy as red-baiting demagogue that finds the true villains in the liberal establishment and the mainstream media.”

“Cutting through decades of narrow or shallow reporting, Arthur Herman offers a balanced and elegant account which captures both Churchill’s generosity of spirit and Gandhi’s greatness of soul. While recognizing their faults, he shows what motivated them and made them great—with impressive research that in Churchill’s words leaves “no stone unturned, no cutlet uncooked.” The last two chapters, and the author’s Conclusion, are alone worth the price of what must become the standard work on the subject.”

“Woodrow Wilson, the liberal idealist, and Vladimir Lenin, the illiberal totalitarian, hand-in-glove unwound the old nineteenth-century order and redefined war as an existential and global struggle over ideas—with disastrous twentieth-century results. In yet another well-written and fascinating dual biography, the prolific and insightful historian Arthur Herman shows how Wilson’s naive good intentions and Lenin’s deliberate ruthlessness nonetheless had the same pernicious effect of using the state to defy human nature. A fascinating and entirely original explanation of the American and Russian origins of the modern world.”

“Deeply researched and engagingly written, this is a gripping account of great battles won and lost, of a triumphant war followed by a failed peace, and of clashing ideologies that shaped a century.”

“Professor Herman demonstrates an infectious and uplifting passion for his subject. Unlike many academics, he is a natural writer, weaving philosophical concerns seamlessly through a historical narrative.”