The Villain among Us

Few villainous figures loom larger in twentieth-century US history than John Edgar Hoover, longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).From 1924 until his death in 1972, Hoover built the FBI into the sprawling apparatus of the security state it is today, perfecting and popularizing the techniques of policing, surveillance, and intimidation commonplace in contemporary law enforcement.Hoover made it his life's work to root out "subversive" elements, which he defined as anyone or anything who threatened the "American" way of life-namely, existing racial and social hierarchies.From labor organizers and civil rights activists to feminists and left-leaning religious and political figures, few escaped the watchful eye of Hoover's FBIincluding Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whom Hoover famously described as "the most notorious liar in the United States."Two recent works shed new light on this familiar story: In The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover, Lerone A. Martin excavates the religious underpinnings of Hoover's work, illuminating the religious authoritarianism that undergirds Hoover's moral and political project.Meanwhile, in G-Man, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Beverly Gage complicates our understanding of Hoover, centering the contradictions that made the man and, critically, unearthing new details about Hoover's sexuality.Together, The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover and