G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century

In Beverly Gage's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century, we get an unflinching look at one of the most powerful figures in U.S. history. Hoover, who led the FBI for nearly five decades until his death in 1972, transformed a modest Bureau of Investigation into a formidable national security apparatus. But as Gage meticulously details, this rise came at a steep cost: rampant surveillance, political blackmail, and the erosion of civil liberties, all in the name of protecting "American values."

Reading it today, it's hard not to see eerie parallels to political disagreements: history definitely rhymes. Hoover's FBI was born in an age of fear: the Red Scare after World War I, where communists and anarchists were hunted with little regard for due process. And it continued to grow every time there was a new fear, its capabilities becoming further-reaching incrementally into the behemoth it has become.

Gage paints Hoover as a master bureaucrat who created a system for storing and retrieving files on criminals, including a national fingerprint database. Of course, this system was abused as government programs often are and was weaponized against opposition politicians and civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., whom the Bureau wiretapped and harassed.

To be fair, Hoover was constantly fighting revolutionaries who sought to overturn the country's principles, those principles being presumably what has made the United States so successful. While the KKK terrorized blacks and their sympathizers in the south, it was Hoover's FBI that picked up the mantle and conducted investigations that southern cops preferred to turn a blind eye towards.

The book weaves in broader American history, showing how Hoover's actions mirrored national anxieties over immigration, radicalism, and social change.

Fast-forward to 2025, and those rhymes are striking. Today's surveillance state, turbocharged by post-9/11 laws like the Patriot Act, echoes Hoover's unchecked wiretapping—now amplified by digital tools from the NSA and FBI. We've seen the FBI accused of political meddling, from investigations into election interference to monitoring dissidents, much like Hoover's era of targeting rival politicians, anti-war protesters and civil rights groups.

What G-Man teaches us is that power without accountability breeds tyranny. Hoover's legacy isn't ancient history—it's a cautionary tale for our polarized times, where fears of "threats" justify overreach. If you're into history that hits close to home, pick up G-Man.