The Anti-Communist Manifestos constitute an insufficiently appreciated episode in the history of the Cold War. Each of the four books it examines was an American best-seller. Each stimulated enormous controversy. Each had an unusually powerful impact on American public opinion and played its role in establishing the anti-Communist consensus of the late 1940s and the 1950s. Finally, each of these books has a "back story" nearly as revealing for our cultural history as the contents of the books themselves. Even today these once-famous anti-Communist manifestos have not lost their power to engage interest and animate passion.