Book review: A Pulitzer winner by Yale Professor Beverly Gage
G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century is a groundbreaking portrait of a ‘bulldog’ who dominated history and shaped much of today’s political landscape.
Yale’s Professor Beverly Gage details this long-serving Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) dfirector across 896 pages using many fresh sources.
As a result, her Viking (Penguin Random House) bestseller took out the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Biography.
So keep reading to find out more about this consequential character and takeaways for your own life-story creating…
What G-Man is all about
G-Man starts in the late 1800s when Hoover is born in Washington on New Year’s Day to a family troubled by illness and death.
We follow him as he grows up to study law and is first employed at the Library of Congress where he learns the importance of collating information.
Next he is hired by the Department of Justice, where he rises to head of the Bureau of Investigation (as the FBI was called) in his mid twenties.
From here, for almost 50 years and under eight presidents, he transforms the scandal-riddled law-enforcement backwater into a powerful modern machine.
“Measured by what he accomplished – not just by what he said – Hoover was among the most powerful conservative political figures of the twentieth century, able to steer the ship of state in his direction even when electoral politics and White House sentiment might have dictated otherwise.”
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Highlights from Gage’s book
One of the main highlights of G-Man is understanding the full width and breadth of Hoover’s complex character.
For instance, his push for perfectionism, pursuit of self-control, loyalty to loved ones and monster work ethic.
Another standout is the dramatic frontline seat to 1930s gangster pursuits, shootouts and killings (such as John Dillinger).
Lastly, it was interesting to read how the FBI ran overseas offices for many years but was reluctantly forced to shut them after the formation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
“It was this combination of factors – openness and secrecy, liberalism and conservatism, hard and soft power – that gave Hoover his extraordinary staying power.”
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Tips from G-Man
G-Man has many takeaways for us as fellow life-story creators.
Firstly, Gage’s exhaustive and formidable use of detail to shine a light on Hoover’s personal and professional secrets.
No doubt this is because of her prodigious research, which included the assistance of colleagues and friends to sift through miles of FBI case files, childhood diaries, letters and more.
Finally, Gage’s writing fairly describes Hoover’s strengths and weakness so that the reader can determine their own opinion of him.
“We cannot know our own story without understanding his, in all its high aspiration and terrible cruelty, and in its many human contradictions.”
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Final say
G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage is a monumental biography about the long-serving FBI director.
Indeed, it is a revelatory portrait of a colossus who for decades influenced government, policing, race, ideology, politics, federal power and much more.
Certainly read this masterful life story if you want to understand the evolution of the 20th century.
But also to see close up how a quiet boy from a modest Washington civil-service family rose to wield a modern law-enforcement machine.
Happy writing and reading!
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