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

For nearly a half-century, J. Edgar Hoover was director of the FBI or its precursor. A rabid anti-Communist now known for his own law-breaking, specifically, for his secret surveillance of American citizens, he is often caricatured as a bulldog.
But in her new biography “G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century” (Viking), Yale historian Beverly Gage reveals new information about the legendary government man (“G-man’) and portrays him as a complicated person, one full of contradictions. Her talk will examine the controversial life and times of Hoover and place him back where he once stood in American political history-not at the fringes, but at the center-using his story to explain the trajectories of governance, policing, race, ideology, political culture, and federal power as they evolved over the course of the 20th century.