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lexy's review against another edition
3.0
lol at me thinking the FBI would have a less messy history than the CIA. Congrats on having like three people who were not cool with torturing suspected terrorists though I guess?
cassietea783's review against another edition
5.0
"A free people must have both security and liberty. They are warring forces, yet we cannot have one without the other."
"[J. Edgar] Hoover stands at the center of the American century like a statue encrusted in grime. His loyalists saw him as a visionary genius. His opponents saw him as 'a goddamned sewer'...Today millions of Americans know him only as a caricature...Hoover was not a monster. He was an American Machiavelli."
"'The Constitution has never greatly bothered any wartime president,' Franklin D. Roosevelt's attorney general once wrote - and every president since has seen himself at war."
WOW. I've been accused many times of being too trusting, so perhaps my awe of this book is partly due to my naïveté. But WOW. Ladies and gents, this book is worth your time! The 45 chapters may seem daunting at first, but I assure you every last page is jam-packed with riveting stories and startling revelations. All of it is backed by incredibly thorough research, including recently declassified audio and physical files. I found that when I had finished the last chapter, my Kindle showed I was only 80% of the way through the book. The last 20% was all acknowledgements and sources! I have a whole new facts-based perspective of our American history in the 20th century, and I'm sure you will too.
Now to buy/read Weiner's book on the CIA...
"[J. Edgar] Hoover stands at the center of the American century like a statue encrusted in grime. His loyalists saw him as a visionary genius. His opponents saw him as 'a goddamned sewer'...Today millions of Americans know him only as a caricature...Hoover was not a monster. He was an American Machiavelli."
"'The Constitution has never greatly bothered any wartime president,' Franklin D. Roosevelt's attorney general once wrote - and every president since has seen himself at war."
WOW. I've been accused many times of being too trusting, so perhaps my awe of this book is partly due to my naïveté. But WOW. Ladies and gents, this book is worth your time! The 45 chapters may seem daunting at first, but I assure you every last page is jam-packed with riveting stories and startling revelations. All of it is backed by incredibly thorough research, including recently declassified audio and physical files. I found that when I had finished the last chapter, my Kindle showed I was only 80% of the way through the book. The last 20% was all acknowledgements and sources! I have a whole new facts-based perspective of our American history in the 20th century, and I'm sure you will too.
Now to buy/read Weiner's book on the CIA...
bryan8063's review against another edition
4.0
This is another great installment (no. 2 of a projected trilogy) from Tim Weiner. The book focusing not on the criminal investigation side, but the intelligence side of the FBI. It is a hard look at an organization that had it share of controversy, mainly from Hoover's view that there is a Communist somewhere, possibly everywhere.
It really is a must read to understand how the FBI functioned, the lines it crossed, and its hope to return to the law, while trying to track down terrorists in the new war on terror.
It really is a must read to understand how the FBI functioned, the lines it crossed, and its hope to return to the law, while trying to track down terrorists in the new war on terror.
awkseance's review against another edition
5.0
Another engaging, unsettling, tragic, and at times darkly comedic history of the FBI. What I appreciate about Weiner is the even-handed approach to chronicling Hoover's life and obsessions. Some reviewers seem to walk away with a more charitable image than I did in regards to Hoover's morals; however it is hard to describe a person who was so influential, was excellent at what they did, but was deeply paranoid and repulsive in many ways.
I liked this even more than Legacy of Ashes as I feel the pacing felt better.
I liked this even more than Legacy of Ashes as I feel the pacing felt better.
canadajanes's review against another edition
4.0
Very well-written and engaging. There is so much interesting history here that a lot of people don't know, definitely worth a read.
maitrey_d's review against another edition
5.0
I rarely read American history. I've to confess, I like more of Ancient and Medieval history which rules American history out, but who doesn't like spies and the cloak and dagger world of espionage eh?
Enemies is a history of 20th Century America I could say. I only knew the FBI as an elite law enforcement agency, but Enemies really opened my eyes to a wholly different FBI.
Tim Weiner is a New York Times journalist whose previous book is a Pulitzer Prize winning history of the CIA (and next on my list!). Enemies is written in a droll, sometimes witty fashion that keeps you gripped from page one.
Weiner recounts that the FBI has spent most of its century long career as the secret police for American Presidents. From the 1920s onwards, the FBI was tasked with handling and removing subversives, foreign spies and communists (to Hoover, they probably were all the same). And boy do J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI make it a mission for Armageddon. Other enemies came and went: anarchists, Nazis, Fascists, Latin American terrorists, homosexuals, Vietnam war dissenters, even civil rights activists; but Hoover was relentless. Weiner stresses that this is finally not a biography of Hoover, but till almost the end of the book, Hoover and the FBI are inseparable. There's more to Hoover than the cross-dressing, living-with-his-mother persona we all know thanks to Hollywood. Then of course, there's Watergate and 9/11. Like I said, it was a good history of America in the 20th Century.
At its heart, Enemies is a sobering account of the mixed record of the FBI. They had some real breakthroughs, especially in WWII when they cracked Japanese ciphers (they missed Pearl Harbour though), and destroyed the Nazi spy network in the US; they even had a mole in the highest networks of the Soviet politburo. But they have a terrible record otherwise in the Cold War, and other foreign policy related issues. Hoover also ran a criminal regime with warrant less wiretaps, burglaries and other black-bag jobs whenever it suited him. His defense to other Presidents was that FDR had granted these to him in perpetuity (I kid you not) and every time he had to testify to Congress, he would disconnect all wiretaps a week before and truthfully say the FBI wasn't running any. What was the most shocking aspect was that while Congress and the American public would have taken Hoover to the cleaners if these details were known then, but Bush Jr. and co. have actually legalized these and countless other rights-violations over their sham War on Terror in the 21st Century.
Enemies is excellently footnoted and Weiner's research is impeccable. I can't imagine the amount of time he must have spent trawling through declassified and official accounts and documents to find some nuggets hidden underneath. The style with which Weiner presents all this dry information is just superb, and at times you forget you are reading a history. Since he is depending quite a bit on declassified material, Enemies is top-heavy with most of the best bits occurring from the 1920s to 70s. You really get a fresh look at characters such as FDR, Truman, Lyndon Johnson and of course Hoover.
I'd happily recommend this book to anybody remotely interested in history, and this book I think is now all the more significant in the light of Snowden's revelations.
Enemies is a history of 20th Century America I could say. I only knew the FBI as an elite law enforcement agency, but Enemies really opened my eyes to a wholly different FBI.
Tim Weiner is a New York Times journalist whose previous book is a Pulitzer Prize winning history of the CIA (and next on my list!). Enemies is written in a droll, sometimes witty fashion that keeps you gripped from page one.
Weiner recounts that the FBI has spent most of its century long career as the secret police for American Presidents. From the 1920s onwards, the FBI was tasked with handling and removing subversives, foreign spies and communists (to Hoover, they probably were all the same). And boy do J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI make it a mission for Armageddon. Other enemies came and went: anarchists, Nazis, Fascists, Latin American terrorists, homosexuals, Vietnam war dissenters, even civil rights activists; but Hoover was relentless. Weiner stresses that this is finally not a biography of Hoover, but till almost the end of the book, Hoover and the FBI are inseparable. There's more to Hoover than the cross-dressing, living-with-his-mother persona we all know thanks to Hollywood. Then of course, there's Watergate and 9/11. Like I said, it was a good history of America in the 20th Century.
At its heart, Enemies is a sobering account of the mixed record of the FBI. They had some real breakthroughs, especially in WWII when they cracked Japanese ciphers (they missed Pearl Harbour though), and destroyed the Nazi spy network in the US; they even had a mole in the highest networks of the Soviet politburo. But they have a terrible record otherwise in the Cold War, and other foreign policy related issues. Hoover also ran a criminal regime with warrant less wiretaps, burglaries and other black-bag jobs whenever it suited him. His defense to other Presidents was that FDR had granted these to him in perpetuity (I kid you not) and every time he had to testify to Congress, he would disconnect all wiretaps a week before and truthfully say the FBI wasn't running any. What was the most shocking aspect was that while Congress and the American public would have taken Hoover to the cleaners if these details were known then, but Bush Jr. and co. have actually legalized these and countless other rights-violations over their sham War on Terror in the 21st Century.
Enemies is excellently footnoted and Weiner's research is impeccable. I can't imagine the amount of time he must have spent trawling through declassified and official accounts and documents to find some nuggets hidden underneath. The style with which Weiner presents all this dry information is just superb, and at times you forget you are reading a history. Since he is depending quite a bit on declassified material, Enemies is top-heavy with most of the best bits occurring from the 1920s to 70s. You really get a fresh look at characters such as FDR, Truman, Lyndon Johnson and of course Hoover.
I'd happily recommend this book to anybody remotely interested in history, and this book I think is now all the more significant in the light of Snowden's revelations.
techwoo's review against another edition
3.0
Apparently two words can describe the FBI's work trough the years - incompetent and unlawful.