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. Pearson-s life embodied 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 childhood 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 sometim
