Rating: 
Summary: But What About The Dress?
Review: This book is exactly what the title suggests, a biography of J. Edgar Hover. The author tells a story that lends credit to all the rumors and assumptions that good old J. Edgar Hoover was the most powerful man in American politics for at least 35- 40 years. This book details his career from the start of the FBI to his death. The book did have details on how the FBI was created, some of its major issues over the years and crimes, and the "black bag jobs", but what I really liked was the details of how J. Edgar dealt with Presidents. Given the ego of the men that were president during this time in history, it really must have been hell for them to have Hover with so much power over them. There probably has not been in American history any one man that can say so many Presidents, an interesting accomplishment, personally hated him.The book is a lot of fun to read because page after page details a lot of the abuses of power and stories of political intrigue that usually only are detailed in fiction. The time frame of the book is also so interesting to most of us, because this in not agent history, but times that many of our parents lived through, WW 2, the Cold War, JFK, Watergate - the book is almost a run down of the major events of the last century for the American nation, and he had his paws in every little bit. There is even details of very basic corruption on the art of Hover and a little on the edge of the rumored homosexuality. Overall a tour de force of the life of J. Edgar, if you are interested in the man, the FBI or American politics this is a book you not only need to read, but will be very glad you did.
Rating:
Summary: Rich in Detail, Broad in Scope, An Amazing Piece of Work
Review: This is one of the most detailed, well-written, scholarly biographies that I have ever read. You really get a feel for Hoover's professional life and his role in American government. Frankly, each chapter of this book is an amazing accomplishment, exposing Hoover for what he was, and more importantly, what he wanted us to believe he was. The only fault that I can find with the book is that, once we get to the 1960s, the author's own political biases begin to color the narrative, but as long as you are aware of it, it doesn't detract from the quality of the book. For instance, the author is quick to counter incorrect or exagerated statements in the book, but when an enemy of Hoover is quoted as saying that he was a "new Beria" and that the FBI was like the old NKVD, the author lets it go at that. Even though, as the author shows us in amazing detail, the FBI commonly used illegal and sometimes oppressive tactics in its wars on crime, communism, radicalism, civil rights leaders, the KKK and the like, it never used the torture, murder, and gulag that the NKVD was justly famous for. To let such a comparison go without comment shows, I think, a bias on the part of author. A great book nontheless.
| 
