I took my time with this — it’s 730+ pages of dense, small type, narrow margins. It’s a beast. It cost $60 Canadian (at Ben McNally books – one of my absolute faves). But it was worth it. 

I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, and it’s only been the last decade or so that I’ve really grown an interest in modern American history, and if this book had been around in 2010 or whatever, it would have changed how I perceived the Trump years. 

My knowledge of Hoover was pretty limited — bad guy, complicit with many of the villains from the mid-20th century, likely closeted and overcompensating. 

Not only did this book fill in a lot of gaps in US political history, it recontextualized the current state of America for me. I’ve often thought of the post-Obama years as a kind of an echo of the Nixon years – Paul Auster’s 4  3  2  1 was kind of eye-opening for me in that way. 

But In the same way that Caro’s The Power Broker explains so much of modern New York, this book made me realize how much the seeds of modern American conservatism were planted by Hoover and his contemporaries. 

And like the similarly unelected Robert Moses, you’re unlikely to find a single figure who casts this long a shadow. Hoover ran the FBI for 45 years, and had an unmatched influence on leaders, politics, and law enforcement. The few times his ambition was curtailed, he grew vindictive and angry, and evolved into more of a monster. By the time Nixon gets elected, Hoover is by far the greater villain.

This book is not only an incredible profile of a singular historical figure, it’s a lens to help explain today’s world.