A review by murph2244
G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage

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.