Code Name Puritan

An insightful biography of an unassuming literary scholar—and spy—who transformed postwar American culture.
 
Although his impact on twentieth-century American cultural life was profound, few people know the story of Norman Holmes Pearson. His life embodies the Cold War alliances among US artists, scholars, and the national-security state that coalesced after World War II. As a Yale professor and editor, he helped legitimize the study of American culture and shaped the public’s understanding of literary modernism—significantly, the work of women poets such as Hilda Doolittle and Gertrude Stein. At the same time, as a spy, recruiter, and cultural diplomat, he connected the academy, the State Department, and even the CIA.

In Code Name Puritan, Greg Barnhisel maps Pearson’s life, from his youthful injury that led to a visible, permanent disability; to his wartime counterespionage work neutralizing the Nazis’ spy network; to his powerful role in the cultural and political heyday sometimes called the American Century. Written with clarity and informed by meticulous research, Barnhisel’s revelatory portrait of Pearson details how his unique experiences shaped his beliefs about American character, from the Puritans onward.