The Yale history prof Beverly Gage has written a new biography of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. It is her first biography, according to the review by Kai Bird, and took thirteen years to write. This is a massive work of almost 750 pages, plus notes. It reminded me of the feeling of achievement after completing the Brothers Karamazov, where I felt like I could take a break for a while. The length of the book is absolutely necessary because of the duration of Hoover's career. As the title indicates, he was intricately connected to all the major figures in American government from the 1920s to the early 1970s, including eight presidents, evenly divided by party. Gage goes right to the beginning with his youth in Washington, D.C., which he never left except for college in the South. She puts a lot of emphasis on his Southern fraternity. The post-WWI era was marked by the rise of communism and anarchists such as Emma Goldman. While the narrative is thorough, Gage ironically has little on Herbert Hoover, the President who shared JEH's name. It then goes into FDR and the New Deal. This is important for a number of reasons. Hoover was the embodiment of what we might call big government, what Jim Burnham called the managerial state. While certainly conservative, he thrived with administrations of both parties and even major differences in political philosophy. He was far more skilled than people think, not just by sly tactics but the ordinary means of persuasion and communication. Despite this, JEH is viewed today as a partisan figure. Before we get to that, there is also a lot of psychoanalyzing of his sexuality. Gage goes with the contemporary interpretation of his relationships, but in a more nuanced, less labeling fashion. I see no reason to question Hoover's commitment to the values of western civilization, of which he viewed himself as a grateful participant. This would include a communitarian view of American society. Both freedom and order are necessary, but order and stability is part of that. So while Hoover was part of big government or the administrative state, he was old enough that he was able to apply traditional values to it. This is very different from the temptation of today's deep state to be anti-Trump. Today he is viewed as a partisan figure and specifically as a villain to the left, something of a Joe McCarthy. This is absurd, because while McCarthy burned out in a few years, Hoover thrived politically and in terms of public relations with high approval ratings. He had differences with the Kennedys, but still worked with them and then thrived under LBJ and Nixon. With regard to anticommunism, I can see his influence on Bishop Fulton Sheen, as well as on the issue of crime. Sheen was a philosopher and saw more complexity, but the rhetoric does reflect that interaction. Gage doesn't really seem to understand the extent of communist infiltration. Even when trying to be neutral about Hiss and Chambers, she seems skeptical even with the evidence that Chambers provided. She relies more on Sam Tanenhaus to interpret Chambers. The most controversial thing about Hoover is probably his dealings with Martin Luther King. This was referenced as recently as in Dave Chappelle's SNL monologue after the midterm elections. Here I thought Gage was quite fair. MLK did great things, and also had some serious errors of judgment regarding the communist associates. By the early 70s, with the new issues such as the counterculture, Hoover was viewed in the partisan way that he is today by the left, with Senators Ted Kennedy, McGovern, Muskie and Church. On the other side, Gage points out Reagan, WFB, Goldwater, Thurmond, Kilpatrick and Schlafly. Pat Buchanan, for his part, was typically astute and recommended that Nixon make him retire before the left got him, but it wasn't possible. After his death, there was more typical bipartisanship in remembering Hoover's legacy, but then it deteriorated. Besides the social unrest of the late 60s and early 70s, as Ross Douthat has shown, something happened to America and the left around 2014, so the villain view prevails. While the author shares much of it, hopefully this work will help some people to see other sides of the stories.