Politics & Government
![Beverly Gage - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B001JS0D3Q.jpg)
G-Man (Pulitzer Prize Winner): J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century
Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Biography
Winner of the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography, the 2023 Bancroft Prize in American History and Diplomacy, and the 43rd LA Times Book Prize in Biography | Finalist for the 2023 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography
Named a Best Book of 2022 by The Atlantic, The Washington Post and Smithsonian Magazine and a New York Times Top 100 Notable Books of 2022
"Masterful…This book is an enduring, formidable accomplishment, a monument to the power of biography [that] now becomes the definitive work"-The Washington Post
"A nuanced portrait in a league with the best of Ron Chernow and David McCullough."-The Wall Street Journal
A major new biography of J Edgar Hoover that draws from never-before-seen sources to create a groundbreaking portrait of a colossus who dominated half a century of American history and planted the seeds for much of today's conservative political landscape.
We remember him as a bulldog--squat frame, bulging wide-set eyes, fearsome jowls--but in 1924, when he became director of the FBI, he had been the trim, dazzling wunderkind of the administrative state, buzzing with energy and big ideas for reform. He transformed a failing law-enforcement backwater, riddled with scandal, into a modern machine. He believed in the power of the federal government to do great things for the nation and its citizens. He also believed that certain people--many of them communists or racial minorities or both-- did not deserve to be included in that American project. Hoover rose to power and then stayed there, decade after decade, using the tools of state to create a personal fiefdom unrivaled in U.S. history.
Beverly Gage's monumental work explores the full sweep of Hoover's life and career, from his birth in 1895 to a modest Washington civil-service family through his death in 1972. In her nuanced and definitive portrait, Gage shows how Hoover was more than a one-dimensional tyrant and schemer who strong-armed the rest of the country into submission. As FBI director from 1924 through his death in 1972, he was a confidant, counselor, and adversary to eight U.S. presidents, four Republicans and four Democrats. Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson did the most to empower him, yet his closest friend among the eight was fellow anticommunist warrior Richard Nixon. Hoover was not above blackmail and intimidation, but he also embodied conservative values ranging from anticommunism to white supremacy to a crusading and politicized interpretation of Christianity. This garnered him the admiration of millions of Americans. He stayed in office for so long because many people, from the highest reaches of government down to the grassroots, wanted him there and supported what he was doing, thus creating the template that the political right has followed to transform its party.
G-Man places Hoover back where he once stood in American political history--not at the fringes, but at the center--and uses his story to explain the trajectories of governance, policing, race, ideology, political culture, and federal power as they evolved over the course of the 20th century.
Winner of the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography, the 2023 Bancroft Prize in American History and Diplomacy, and the 43rd LA Times Book Prize in Biography | Finalist for the 2023 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography
Named a Best Book of 2022 by The Atlantic, The Washington Post and Smithsonian Magazine and a New York Times Top 100 Notable Books of 2022
"Masterful…This book is an enduring, formidable accomplishment, a monument to the power of biography [that] now becomes the definitive work"-The Washington Post
"A nuanced portrait in a league with the best of Ron Chernow and David McCullough."-The Wall Street Journal
A major new biography of J Edgar Hoover that draws from never-before-seen sources to create a groundbreaking portrait of a colossus who dominated half a century of American history and planted the seeds for much of today's conservative political landscape.
We remember him as a bulldog--squat frame, bulging wide-set eyes, fearsome jowls--but in 1924, when he became director of the FBI, he had been the trim, dazzling wunderkind of the administrative state, buzzing with energy and big ideas for reform. He transformed a failing law-enforcement backwater, riddled with scandal, into a modern machine. He believed in the power of the federal government to do great things for the nation and its citizens. He also believed that certain people--many of them communists or racial minorities or both-- did not deserve to be included in that American project. Hoover rose to power and then stayed there, decade after decade, using the tools of state to create a personal fiefdom unrivaled in U.S. history.
Beverly Gage's monumental work explores the full sweep of Hoover's life and career, from his birth in 1895 to a modest Washington civil-service family through his death in 1972. In her nuanced and definitive portrait, Gage shows how Hoover was more than a one-dimensional tyrant and schemer who strong-armed the rest of the country into submission. As FBI director from 1924 through his death in 1972, he was a confidant, counselor, and adversary to eight U.S. presidents, four Republicans and four Democrats. Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson did the most to empower him, yet his closest friend among the eight was fellow anticommunist warrior Richard Nixon. Hoover was not above blackmail and intimidation, but he also embodied conservative values ranging from anticommunism to white supremacy to a crusading and politicized interpretation of Christianity. This garnered him the admiration of millions of Americans. He stayed in office for so long because many people, from the highest reaches of government down to the grassroots, wanted him there and supported what he was doing, thus creating the template that the political right has followed to transform its party.
G-Man places Hoover back where he once stood in American political history--not at the fringes, but at the center--and uses his story to explain the trajectories of governance, policing, race, ideology, political culture, and federal power as they evolved over the course of the 20th century.
Editorial Reviews
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY
Winner of the New-York Historical Society's 2023 Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize
Winner of the Organization of American Historians 2023 Ellis W. Hawley Prize
Winner of the 43rd Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Biography
Finalist for the 2023 ABA Silver Gavel Award in Books, the 2023 Mark Lynton History Prize, and the Biographers International Organization 2022 Plutarch Award
The New York Times "TOP 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2022"
The Atlantic "Top 10 Books of the Year"
The Washington Post "Top Ten Books of 2022"
Publishers Weekly * "Top Ten Books of 2022"
Smithsonian Magazine "The Ten Best History Books of 2022"
"Revelatory...an acknowledgment of the complexities that made Hoover who he was, while charging the turbulent currents that eventually swept him aside."-The New York Times
"[A] crisply written, prodigiously researched, and frequently astonishing new biography"-The New Yorker
"Gage's penetrating account of Hoover's career, especially his many long-eclipsed triumphs, offers a well-timed and sobering perspective as yet another institution in our fractured country struggles to maintain trust." -The Atlantic
"Gage's triumph is her deft navigation through Hoover's 'deep state,' while reminding us of the abuse of power that remains his enduring legacy."-The Boston Globe
"Judicious... make[s] you realize...Hoover's half-century of immense influence rested on his mastery of a very American art--the crafting of his image." --Adan Hochschild, The Nation
"Gage has done a service to history with this clear-eye...
Winner of the New-York Historical Society's 2023 Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize
Winner of the Organization of American Historians 2023 Ellis W. Hawley Prize
Winner of the 43rd Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Biography
Finalist for the 2023 ABA Silver Gavel Award in Books, the 2023 Mark Lynton History Prize, and the Biographers International Organization 2022 Plutarch Award
The New York Times "TOP 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2022"
The Atlantic "Top 10 Books of the Year"
The Washington Post "Top Ten Books of 2022"
Publishers Weekly * "Top Ten Books of 2022"
Smithsonian Magazine "The Ten Best History Books of 2022"
"Revelatory...an acknowledgment of the complexities that made Hoover who he was, while charging the turbulent currents that eventually swept him aside."-The New York Times
"[A] crisply written, prodigiously researched, and frequently astonishing new biography"-The New Yorker
"Gage's penetrating account of Hoover's career, especially his many long-eclipsed triumphs, offers a well-timed and sobering perspective as yet another institution in our fractured country struggles to maintain trust." -The Atlantic
"Gage's triumph is her deft navigation through Hoover's 'deep state,' while reminding us of the abuse of power that remains his enduring legacy."-The Boston Globe
"Judicious... make[s] you realize...Hoover's half-century of immense influence rested on his mastery of a very American art--the crafting of his image." --Adan Hochschild, The Nation
"Gage has done a service to history with this clear-eye...
Readers Top Reviews
david martinBrend
I've read a lot about the FBI, the gangsters, (Mafia and 30's) and found this book, while comprehensive, lacking. There are stories and rumors about Hoover and the FBI but you won't find them hear. It does mention another book, "Official and Confidential" that includes a lot of the rumors but only in passing. No discussion at all about leaving the Mafia alone. a lot of focus on presidents, politics, and MLK but there's a lot that's not there. At least some discussion about the stories to either be debunked or something. Lots about Tolson, but again, i was expecting a deeper dive. Hey, maybe there is no more to say, but overall, details abound, but i kept waiting for, oh here comes the good part. Didn't see it.
Dogmom4everdavid
This is a brilliant book - but I bought it twice - once in print and then again, because the font size was so small, I bought it on Kindle. A very nuanced portrait of Hoover that is as much a biography as a history of the United States in the 20th century. Very well written and absorbing.
GuyDogmom4everdav
Gage gives much thought to such an incredibly well researched book. Hoover was very complicated and deserves credit as well as criticism which is well documented. A great a US history is part of the Hoover storylines Well worth reading and thinking about.
Liz PetersenGuyDo
In depth history from an objective point pf view. Felt like an honest and respectful depiction of our 20th century history
MT57Liz PetersenG
This book is well researched and lengthy. I am sure it is the product of many years of work. It paints a cohesive portrait of Hoover as one of the first "progressive" bureaucrats, in the original sense of that word in US history, where it meant scientific and pragmatic. The author emphasizes this bureaucratic side over the autocratic side, which came to dominate the public perception of him over the past 50 years. In her telling, Hoover was consistently DISinclined from temperament, conservatism, and legal training to expand the FBI's activities, but was led to do so by more political and / or adamant superiors, particularly FDR ( a new insight for me), until, finally, in his last years, out of disgust with the rise of the counterculture, he went over completely and without reservation to the dark side. The book devotes roughly 150 pages to Hoover's upbringing and family history and college years. This I gather was an under-examined portion of his life. She makes much of his membership in a overtly pro-Southern fraternity in his college years, and reveals that the fraternity was a significant source of hires in the early days of the FBI. The book also covers his presumably homosexual relationships with two men, first Melvin Purvis, which was more emotionally extravagant, and then Clyde Tolson, his lifelong companion. While what the book contains is certainly thorough and well-considered, the book strangely omits mention of virtually all of the more sensational points made in Anthony Summers' book about 30 years ago, which first surfaced to the general public the nature of Hoover's private life. Her notes on sources show that she read that book, met with the author, had access to his source materials, but almost entirely ignores that book. Only one anecdote, summarized and dismissed in two paragraphs, makes its way into this book. She does not refute anything else in that book. She just ignores it. And I am not referring merely to Summers' work on Hoover's private life but to his assertions that the mob blackmailed Hoover regarding his sexuality and bribed him with tips on fixed races. None of that is mentioned in the slightest, despite the near-encyclopedic nature of the rest of her research. Nor, in her chapters on WWII, does she take up the propositions that Hoover met personally with Frank Costello to work out a modus vivendi with the mob regarding operation of the docks in NYC during the war. So, while what is in the book undoubtedly deserves 5 stars, I have to downgrade my review to reflect these considerable omissions. I will not speculate on why the author ducked these more controversial questions regarding her subject.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter 1
The Oldest Inhabitants
(1800-1895)
When J. Edgar Hoover told the story of his life, he began with a childhood parable. Even as a little boy, he sought out lessons and morals: "1. Eat slowly. 2. Eat regularly. 3. Do not eat between meals," he wrote in a childhood newspaper, composed at age eleven. As an adult, he tended to describe his early years as a series of edifying adventures, each building upon the last to make him a decent, God-fearing man. He particularly liked the story of his first job, delivering groceries at Washington's Eastern Market, when he discovered that running faster and working harder than all the other boys meant bigger tips.
Hoover did work hard as a boy, earning near-perfect grades and a spotless record as a Sunday school teacher. All the same, his childhood-even more than most-was messy and uncertain, shaped by family tragedies that began well before his birth. In 1880, fifteen years before Hoover was born, his maternal grandfather drowned himself in the Anacostia River, leaving behind a note despairing of the "hypocritical and false-swearing people" who had driven him to the act. Four decades later, Hoover's own father died of "melancholia" and "inanition" (what we today might describe as severe depression), disappearing first into sadness and rage and, later, losing the desire to eat or live. In between, there were other births and deaths, and even a murder scandalous enough to make the front page.
As an adult, Hoover never spoke publicly of these difficulties. It would have been anathema for him to do so, a confession of pain and weakness from a man who valued certitude and control. There are connections nonetheless: between the emotional chaos of childhood and the emotional challenges of adulthood; between the teenager forced to keep secrets about his father and the government servant for whom secrets became a way of life. As a young man, Hoover was driven to succeed, first as high school valedictorian, then as a law-school standout, and finally in the Justice Department, where he went to work at the age of twenty-two. Some of these early accomplishments flowed from genuine talent and ambition. Even in high school, students knew him as a boy on his way up. But fear and necessity drove him during those years as well, a pressure to earn money and to do all that his father (and his grandfathers before that) had failed to do. By the time he reached his late twenties, he had acquired the two essential elements of his professional outlook: first, a passionate commitment to the idea of nonpartisan, expert-driven career government service; second, a deep-seated conservatism on matters of race, religion, and left-wing threats to the political status quo. These themes would define his career, but as a boy he was still learning, absorbing stern lessons and cautionary tales from his family, schools, and hometown.
The closest Hoover ever came to acknowledging a less than perfect childhood was in 1938, a few months after his mother's death, when he published an unusually personal article speculating about what might happen "If I Had a Son." In that article, he noted that boys want to worship their fathers "as head of the house, a repository of all knowledge, the universal provider, the righteous Judge." Such admiration became impossible when parents relied on "half-truths" to lull their children into a false sense of security. "If I had a son, I'd swear to do one thing: I'd tell him the truth," Hoover wrote. "No matter how difficult it might be, I'd tell my boy the truth." The advice is surprising, coming from a man who spent his adult life avoiding the exposure of uncomfortable truths about himself and the institution he created. As a guiding principle for telling his story, though, it seems like a fine place to begin.
From his grandparents and great-grandparents, men and women he mostly never knew, Hoover inherited two important legacies. The first was a set of roots in the federal city of Washington, D.C., where traditions of government service and social hierarchy existed side by side. The second was a history of violence and breakdown among the family's men, including the premature deaths of his grandfathers more than a decade before his birth. From his Washington roots he gained both his professional mission and his political worldview. From his family's difficulties he took a merciless anxiety about the world, and a desire to control what happened around him.
As a clan, the Hoovers seem to have hailed from German stock, but so far back that it hardly mattered. During the eighteenth century, the family lived in Pennsylvania before migrating south to Washington in the early nineteenth century. The city was brand-new in those years, an artificial creation carve...
The Oldest Inhabitants
(1800-1895)
When J. Edgar Hoover told the story of his life, he began with a childhood parable. Even as a little boy, he sought out lessons and morals: "1. Eat slowly. 2. Eat regularly. 3. Do not eat between meals," he wrote in a childhood newspaper, composed at age eleven. As an adult, he tended to describe his early years as a series of edifying adventures, each building upon the last to make him a decent, God-fearing man. He particularly liked the story of his first job, delivering groceries at Washington's Eastern Market, when he discovered that running faster and working harder than all the other boys meant bigger tips.
Hoover did work hard as a boy, earning near-perfect grades and a spotless record as a Sunday school teacher. All the same, his childhood-even more than most-was messy and uncertain, shaped by family tragedies that began well before his birth. In 1880, fifteen years before Hoover was born, his maternal grandfather drowned himself in the Anacostia River, leaving behind a note despairing of the "hypocritical and false-swearing people" who had driven him to the act. Four decades later, Hoover's own father died of "melancholia" and "inanition" (what we today might describe as severe depression), disappearing first into sadness and rage and, later, losing the desire to eat or live. In between, there were other births and deaths, and even a murder scandalous enough to make the front page.
As an adult, Hoover never spoke publicly of these difficulties. It would have been anathema for him to do so, a confession of pain and weakness from a man who valued certitude and control. There are connections nonetheless: between the emotional chaos of childhood and the emotional challenges of adulthood; between the teenager forced to keep secrets about his father and the government servant for whom secrets became a way of life. As a young man, Hoover was driven to succeed, first as high school valedictorian, then as a law-school standout, and finally in the Justice Department, where he went to work at the age of twenty-two. Some of these early accomplishments flowed from genuine talent and ambition. Even in high school, students knew him as a boy on his way up. But fear and necessity drove him during those years as well, a pressure to earn money and to do all that his father (and his grandfathers before that) had failed to do. By the time he reached his late twenties, he had acquired the two essential elements of his professional outlook: first, a passionate commitment to the idea of nonpartisan, expert-driven career government service; second, a deep-seated conservatism on matters of race, religion, and left-wing threats to the political status quo. These themes would define his career, but as a boy he was still learning, absorbing stern lessons and cautionary tales from his family, schools, and hometown.
The closest Hoover ever came to acknowledging a less than perfect childhood was in 1938, a few months after his mother's death, when he published an unusually personal article speculating about what might happen "If I Had a Son." In that article, he noted that boys want to worship their fathers "as head of the house, a repository of all knowledge, the universal provider, the righteous Judge." Such admiration became impossible when parents relied on "half-truths" to lull their children into a false sense of security. "If I had a son, I'd swear to do one thing: I'd tell him the truth," Hoover wrote. "No matter how difficult it might be, I'd tell my boy the truth." The advice is surprising, coming from a man who spent his adult life avoiding the exposure of uncomfortable truths about himself and the institution he created. As a guiding principle for telling his story, though, it seems like a fine place to begin.
From his grandparents and great-grandparents, men and women he mostly never knew, Hoover inherited two important legacies. The first was a set of roots in the federal city of Washington, D.C., where traditions of government service and social hierarchy existed side by side. The second was a history of violence and breakdown among the family's men, including the premature deaths of his grandfathers more than a decade before his birth. From his Washington roots he gained both his professional mission and his political worldview. From his family's difficulties he took a merciless anxiety about the world, and a desire to control what happened around him.
As a clan, the Hoovers seem to have hailed from German stock, but so far back that it hardly mattered. During the eighteenth century, the family lived in Pennsylvania before migrating south to Washington in the early nineteenth century. The city was brand-new in those years, an artificial creation carve...
