“The Most Dangerous Communist in the United States”

"A first-rate piece of scholarship and a great book, which amounts not only to the life story of an individual, but a balanced, provocative, and clear-eyed history of American Communism from its 1930s heyday to its virtual collapse in the 1990s."—Maurice Isserman, author of If I Had a Hammer: The Death of the Old Left and the Birth of the New Left

"Murrell points a vivid, detailed picture of Aptheker's political life and for this he should be commended. 'The Most Dangerous Communist in the United States' is a monumental accomplishment."—People's World

"In a remarkable Afterward, Bettina Aptheker pays tribute to her mother and her father, without removing the stain of an activity [sexual abuse] that, she says, he inisted he could not remember. Did this activity have any role in his scholarship or political activity? Bettina does not think so, and neither does Murrell, so we are left to wonder, or simply let it pass by as another of life's imponderables."—Portside

"If you've never heard of Aptheker, Murrell's new book title, 'The Most Dangerous Communist in the United States:' A biography of Herbert Aptheker spells it out quite plainly. But the book is anything but a plain read. Murrell captures an American activist at the professional height — and troubling family depths — of his life. From inspiration to expiration, the book is a thorough study of a man J. Edger Hoover once declared 'the most dangerous communist in the United States'."—Daily World

"Gary Murrell has given us a much-needed comprehensive study of the life and work of Dr. Herbert Aptheker, Marxist historian and political theoretician. . . . We are indebted to him."—Science & Society

"I am grateful to Murrell for uncovering so much about [Apthecker] and setting it all in order."—American Communist History

"Murrell's well-written biography of Herbert Aptheker is an important contribution to American intellectual history and the Communist Party in the 20th century. It should be widely read by scholars of U.S. political and African American history and researchers of American academic culture."—Journal of African American History