J edgar hoover biography book

G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of
the American Century
by Beverly Gage
864 pages
Viking (Penguin Random House)
Published: Nov 2022

One of 2022’s most notable new biographies is Beverly Gage’s long-awaited “G-Man: J.

Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century.” Gage is a professor of American history at Yale University and the author of The Day Wall Street Exploded.

J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) is an intriguing biographical subject; he spent 48 years as Director of the FBI and was arguably the most powerful unelected public official in the country at the time.

But any survey of his career also provides unique insight into the lives of the public figures who operated within his sphere. And during his nearly half-century at the FBI he worked with every president from Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixon.

One might assume that Hoover’s life has been fully dissected by previous biographers.

But a