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graywacke's review against another edition
informative
4.5
Hoover is an American villain, a scapegoat for everything wrong with America in the 1950s and the 1960s. He was also a dedicated civil servant for 40+ years, leading the FBI from 1924 until his death, a weak before the arrests that became Watergate. He was appointed under Cooleridge, and supported by presidents Herbert, FDR, Eisenhower, Johnson, and Nixon, and he was tolerated by Truman and Kennedy. He had a 90%+ approval rating when Nixon, a close friend of his, was elected.
Involved in the Palmer raids targeting Communist radicals in 1919, he survived the backlash and cleaned up the FBI. But he willingly helped FDR on illegal counter-intelligence, and spying, and only extended his surveillance of American extremists, and any leading liberal figures. A hard conservative, he was most worried about anything that threatened the status quo - which meant the KKK, but also civil rights leaders and anyone wrestling with non-violent southern racism, something he quietly supported (!). He even wire tapped MLK, finding all his private sexual exploits. He also prosecuted government homesexuals, by open policy, even though he, himself, was quietly gay. But no one knew all he was doing.
When Watergate broke, and congress started investigating into the FBI, post-Hoover, with unexpected openness by the new head of the FBI, all the surveillance Hoover had run came to light, and he went from a hero's funeral, to, almost immediately, and posthumous American villain.
tldr: this is an excellent biography of a difficult, unpleasant, but important American figure.
Involved in the Palmer raids targeting Communist radicals in 1919, he survived the backlash and cleaned up the FBI. But he willingly helped FDR on illegal counter-intelligence, and spying, and only extended his surveillance of American extremists, and any leading liberal figures. A hard conservative, he was most worried about anything that threatened the status quo - which meant the KKK, but also civil rights leaders and anyone wrestling with non-violent southern racism, something he quietly supported (!). He even wire tapped MLK, finding all his private sexual exploits. He also prosecuted government homesexuals, by open policy, even though he, himself, was quietly gay. But no one knew all he was doing.
When Watergate broke, and congress started investigating into the FBI, post-Hoover, with unexpected openness by the new head of the FBI, all the surveillance Hoover had run came to light, and he went from a hero's funeral, to, almost immediately, and posthumous American villain.
tldr: this is an excellent biography of a difficult, unpleasant, but important American figure.
bhgold1711's review
informative
slow-paced
4.0
G-Man is a dense, detailed biography of J. Edgar Hoover. It's not kind to the man, not that he deserves it, but it is very detailed about his life and his tenure as head of the FBI. (It also spends a lot of time interspersed through the book on the facts long-standing innuendo and rumor that he was gay, without ever really coming out one way or another)
notallbooks_mp's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.75
murph2244's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
5.0
This one took me a while to get through because I paused to read a couple of other books while reading it, but I’m really glad I was finally able to finish it! It’s an incredibly detailed and well researched account of Hoover’s life and how deeply involved he was in essentially every major event in America from the 20s to the 60s. It obviously highlights a lot of the abuses he directed that have become pretty common public knowledge since his death, but it was also really interesting to learn about other aspects of his tenure. He was able to maintain extraordinarily high popularity rates (consistently above 75%) up until the very end because of his political shrewdness in covering up his controversial actions and presenting himself in a way that appealed to both liberals and conservatives. In fact, two of the presidents who expanded his power the most were Roosevelt and Johnson. This was in spite of his conservative and white supremacist views that drove most of the horrible things he did as director. But it was also interesting to learn about some of his efforts to investigate and prosecute lynchings and the use of COINTELPRO against the Klan, even though the large majority of his actions were taken against leftists and civil rights groups. Overall, he was driven by a desire to protect the country from the threats he, with his prejudices, saw and a desire to protect his reputation and that of the FBI, whether through coverups or concrete action.
acciohannah's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
tense
slow-paced
5.0
5 stars
This book is one that I’ve been waiting to read since it was announced, and since it won a Pulitzer earlier this year. As a connoisseur of all things ooky spooky, an in-depth, 850+ page definitive biography on J Edgar Hoover (arguably the spookiest g-man of them all) was exactly what I needed.
It’s actually kind of shocking how central one man can be in history. To borrow a phrase from Dan Carlin, Hoover was a capital G, Great Man. (Not great in a good way, but in the way that sometimes a single man can change the fabric of our society irrevocably.) There’s very few people more integral to US and World history in the mid-20th century, than the former FBI director.
Gage does an incredible job distilling what is likely years of research into an intelligible history on this complex and villainous man. She so masterfully (and chronologically) tells the facts as we know them, while simultaneously drawing lines to the current day ramifications of his decisions, policies, personal beliefs and dealings. As I’m sure everyone knows by now, I’m fascinated by history and its branches. How the decisions made in the past directly correlate to the present that we live in. These actions have very, very serious consequences that we are seeing to this very day - and likely will continue to see in the future. This is a mostly unbiased look at Hoover’s life both beyond and behind the desk.
Gage does an incredible job distilling what is likely years of research into an intelligible history on this complex and villainous man. She so masterfully (and chronologically) tells the facts as we know them, while simultaneously drawing lines to the current day ramifications of his decisions, policies, personal beliefs and dealings. As I’m sure everyone knows by now, I’m fascinated by history and its branches. How the decisions made in the past directly correlate to the present that we live in. These actions have very, very serious consequences that we are seeing to this very day - and likely will continue to see in the future. This is a mostly unbiased look at Hoover’s life both beyond and behind the desk.
Gage expertly speaks on Hoover’s sexuality, a topic often times relegated to being either a punch line, non-essential to his business or the impotence for his evil. Neither of which are true. Gage again tells the reality (while siting all of her sources) and explains why the proliferation of homophobic assumptions about Hoover is ultimately harmful no matter what outcome you’re trying to reach.
What’s that saying about absolute power? It corrupts absolutely? And corrupt a nation it did. This book is one that is mandatory reading for all you nerds out there. The research is impeccable, the writing excellent, and the story massively essential. Its accolades are truly befitting for a piece this incredible, and this is just another explosive reminder of why real journalism is important.
P.S.
I want to address this here because the subject matter goes hand in hand and I think it’s more important than ever to talk about this…this is decidedly not a conspiracy based book, it’s purely factual. However, I’m bringing it up because there is something to be said about conspiracy thought today. Often people take stories like this and use them as sticking points for their own narratives. These kinds of stories are where conspiracies take root. They hide in the gaps of history, they lie in half-truths, they become twisted and then exploited. No matter how many times I scream it from the rooftops it never ceases being true: conspiracy theories have real world ramifications and they lead to nothing but pain and suffering.