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J. Edgar Hoover, G-Man (w/ Beverly Gage)
🕑 Added 2022-12-19 23:16:40 +0000 UTCFor forty-eight years, American presidents came and went, but J. Edgar Hoover remained as the powerful director of the FBI. In her authoritative new biography, G-Man, Yale historian Beverly Gage brings Hoover to life, uncovering the all-too-human man who played such an outsized role in twentieth-century U.S. political history. Gage's decade of research provides fascinating insights into the troubles that impinged on Hoover's childhood; his formative time in a white supremacist, Southern fraternity at George Washington University, Kappa Alpha; his early years in what was then the Bureau of Investigation and eventual rise to running it; Hoover's personal life and sexuality, including his longterm relationship with Clyde Tolson; and the transformation of the FBI across the 1930s and 1940s, and the ways it drew Hoover into a number of controversies that followed, from the Kennedy assassination to COINTELPRO and the FBI's attacks on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Sources:
Beverly Gage, G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century (Viking, 2022)
Michael Kazin, "J. Edgar Hoover’s Long Shadow," New Republic, Dec 9, 2022
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop (1835, 2002)
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Comments
Thomas Donnelly
https://amzn.eu/d/7EWMICh. This is 0.99GBP from Amazon.co.uk for kindle. While stocks last
Joshua Smith
Just powered through this book on your recommendation- it was a great read. Suffice it to say this one is truly a trip to the dark heart of some of the worst excesses of power that happened in the 20th Century.
Joseph Mudikuneil
This was an awesome episode. I learned so much. Thank you
Mark K
In college we used to call KA not Kappa Alpha but Kareer A**holes. But I had no idea of their racist past or connection to Hoover. Fascinating!
History Chick
Great episode! Hoover is such an important and fascinating figure in U.S. history. He seems to represent a certain type in American history and for that reason he is important to understand, and, of course, there's never a dull moment. I can't wait to read the book!
Alex
I wonder if there was also an unspoken understanding between Nixon and Hoover about power. Both appear to have been deeply inauthentic men whose private and public personas sharply contrasted and who were willing to go to somewhat extreme lengths to maintain control over their fiefdoms.
Rick Perlstein
Pronounced Karen Hor-NAY, by the way. She's the best!
Rick Perlstein
One historical point: the post-war association of Hoover with professionalization and modernization of policing, simultaneous to his over-the-top reaction, was actually a pattern at the time for a lot of the most racist and reactionary police leaders, like William Parker in Los Angeles (who coined the phrase "the thin blue line") and Orlando Wilson in Chicago.
Rick Perlstein
Loving this discussion. Makes me feel like an old man, in a good way. Back around 2000 Bev and I and Kim Philips-Fein and some other brilliant folks were in a discussion group where we'd get together in Greenwich Village back when the Seattle WTO protests were the biggest thing going. We were all living the lifestyle Sam and Matt do now, as aspiring and emerging public intellectuals, with the biggest difference being...the idea we could have influence on mainstream politics and the Democratic Party and get talked about in the New Yorker and New York Times felt inconceivable. Progress!
William Fedullo
Great interview! You guys keep prompting me to buy books about mid century political figures that I absolutely don’t have time to read.
Sloppydong Milosedick
I am going to love and hate this.
