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A review by cassietea783
Enemies: A History of the FBI by Tim Weiner
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...