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A review by jaredwill_
G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage
4.0
In my lifetime, Hoover has always been portrayed as a villain; it's interesting to see the evolution from low level bureaucrat looking for a job to perhaps the person most responsible for destroying or at least retarding the development of progressive policies and civil rights in the United States.
It's a really interesting story and two things become very clear.
1: is that you should always be wary of losing yourself to your boogeyman. Hoover had some reason to be afraid of communists when he first took office, but it clearly became the overrating concern of his lifetime to the point that any group that did not agree with his right wing conservative pro-america point of view must obviously be in collusion with or being duped by the communists.
2: You have to know when your time is up. Hoover allowed his obsession with communism to make him increasingly more paranoid and more destructive in a way that I believe his younger self would have been deeply concerned by. He also became less and less effective at his job as time went on. When your entire identity is your job, it's really hard to walk away. Hoover could have used a hobby.
It's a really interesting story and two things become very clear.
1: is that you should always be wary of losing yourself to your boogeyman. Hoover had some reason to be afraid of communists when he first took office, but it clearly became the overrating concern of his lifetime to the point that any group that did not agree with his right wing conservative pro-america point of view must obviously be in collusion with or being duped by the communists.
2: You have to know when your time is up. Hoover allowed his obsession with communism to make him increasingly more paranoid and more destructive in a way that I believe his younger self would have been deeply concerned by. He also became less and less effective at his job as time went on. When your entire identity is your job, it's really hard to walk away. Hoover could have used a hobby.