G-Man

Drawing on declassified documents, Beverly Gage weaves a fascinating story about a complex man who was loved and idolized by many Americans and reviled by others.

Rather than opting for a one-sided portrait, Gages paints a multifaceted portrait that includes Hoover’s achievements and flaws. Here was a law-and-order man who fought criminals and communists and espoused Christianity and yet had a secret homosexual life. As the director of the FBI for nearly 50 years, he shaped an important American institution and left a lasting impact on the lives of all Americans.

To read this book, which I loved, is to… show more.

I liked this book because not only is it a detailed intellectual biography of probably the most pivotal individual in the US, but the book also does a deep dive into major episodes in American history. The author also lays bare many of the myths that I had heard about Hoover and reveals many of the truths that I knew nothing about. 

John Edgar Hoover ran the Federal Bureau of Investigation for almost fifty years, from 1924 until his death at the helm in 1972.

His tenure as the country’s chief lawman stretched from the “War on Crime” battles against Depression-era bank robbers and kidnappers to the eve of the Watergate scandal. Yale history professor Beverly Gage offers an authoritative and engagingly written biography of the Washington powerbroker who built a law-enforcement empire and used it to fight his personal enemies as well as America’s.

An important book that documents one man’s outsized impact on his country and his times.