G-Man (Pulitzer Prize Winner) Audiobook By Beverly Gage cover art

G-Man (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

G-Man (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

By: Beverly Gage
Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $31.50

Buy for $31.50

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Biography

Winner of the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography, the 2023 Bancroft Prize in American History and Diplomacy, and the 43rd LA Times Book Prize in Biography | Finalist for the 2023 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography

Named a Best Book of 2022 by The Atlantic, The Washington Post and Smithsonian Magazine and a New York Times Top 100 Notable Books of 2022

“Masterful…This book is an enduring, formidable accomplishment, a monument to the power of biography [that] now becomes the definitive work”—The Washington Post

“A nuanced portrait in a league with the best of Ron Chernow and David McCullough.”—The Wall Street Journal

A major new biography of J Edgar Hoover that draws from never-before-seen sources to create a groundbreaking portrait of a colossus who dominated half a century of American history and planted the seeds for much of today's conservative political landscape.

We remember him as a bulldog—squat frame, bulging wide-set eyes, fearsome jowls—but in 1924, when he became director of the FBI, he had been the trim, dazzling wunderkind of the administrative state, buzzing with energy and big ideas for reform. He transformed a failing law-enforcement backwater, riddled with scandal, into a modern machine. He believed in the power of the federal government to do great things for the nation and its citizens. He also believed that certain people—many of them communists or racial minorities or both—did not deserve to be included in that American project. Hoover rose to power and then stayed there, decade after decade, using the tools of state to create a personal fiefdom unrivaled in U.S. history.

Beverly Gage’s monumental work explores the full sweep of Hoover’s life and career, from his birth in 1895 to a modest Washington civil-service family through his death in 1972. In her nuanced and definitive portrait, Gage shows how Hoover was more than a one-dimensional tyrant and schemer who strong-armed the rest of the country into submission. As FBI director from 1924 through his death in 1972, he was a confidant, counselor, and adversary to eight U.S. presidents, four Republicans and four Democrats. Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson did the most to empower him, yet his closest friend among the eight was fellow anticommunist warrior Richard Nixon. Hoover was not above blackmail and intimidation, but he also embodied conservative values ranging from anticommunism to white supremacy to a crusading and politicized interpretation of Christianity. This garnered him the admiration of millions of Americans. He stayed in office for so long because many people, from the highest reaches of government down to the grassroots, wanted him there and supported what he was doing, thus creating the template that the political right has followed to transform its party.

G-Man places Hoover back where he once stood in American political history—not at the fringes, but at the center—and uses 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.

©2022 Beverly Gage (P)2022 Penguin Audio
Intelligence & Espionage Politicians United States American History Espionage
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Critic reviews

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY

Winner of the New-York Historical Society’s 2023 Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize

Winner of the Organization of American Historians 2023 Ellis W. Hawley Prize

Winner of the 43rd Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Biography

Finalist for the 2023 ABA Silver Gavel Award in Books, the 2023 Mark Lynton History Prize, and the Biographers International Organization 2022 Plutarch Award

The New York Times "TOP 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2022"

The Atlantic "Top 10 Books of the Year"

The Washington Post "Top Ten Books of 2022"

Publishers Weekly * "Top Ten Books of 2022"

Smithsonian Magazine "The Ten Best History Books of 2022"

"Revelatory...an acknowledgment of the complexities that made Hoover who he was, while charging the turbulent currents that eventually swept him aside."The New York Times

“[A] crisply written, prodigiously researched, and frequently astonishing new biography”The New Yorker

“Gage’s penetrating account of Hoover’s career, especially his many long-eclipsed triumphs, offers a well-timed and sobering perspective as yet another institution in our fractured country struggles to maintain trust.”The Atlantic

Featured Article: Best of the Year—The 12 Best History Listens of 2022


We’ve noticed—and applaud—a trend in our members' preferences for history: Audible listeners want to hear about events of the past with both discipline and nuance. You want authoritative synthesis and reliable facts, but also to hear about people's lived experience, preferably in novelistic detail. And all of us love some juicy reconstruction from time to time. This year, we picked the best performances to fill that tall order.