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

G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century is a biography by the Yale professor and historian Beverly Gage. It examines the life of John Edgar Hoover, best known as the founding director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who ran the bureau from 1924 (then the Bureau of Investigation) until his death in 1972. In this capacity, he was the most influential American law enforcement official of the 20th century. The first biography of Hoover published in nearly 30 years, G-Man draws on a wealth of previously unavailable sources that Gage was able to procure through Freedom of Information Act requests. Gage also studied the enormous database of files from the notorious COINTELPRO (counter intelligence program), Hoover’s project for surveilling and often disrupting suspected political radicals, although she admits that the files are simply too voluminous for any one person to cover on their own.

In interviews, Gage has stated that a new biography is necessary because he has become a caricature in the public consciousness. In his portrayal as a supervillain, he used his perch atop the FBI to amass files on everyone from political opponents to the rich and famous, and then used that information to bend even presidents to his will.