Kirjahaku

Just after noon on September 16, 1920, as hundreds of workers poured onto Wall Street for their lunchtime break, a horse-drawn cart packed with dynamite exploded in a spray of metal and fire, turning the busiest corner of the financial center into a war zone. Thirty-nine people died and hundreds more lay wounded, making the Wall Street explosion the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history until the Oklahoma City bombing. In The Day Wall Street Exploded, Beverly Gage tells the story of that once infamous but now largely forgotten event. Based on thousands of pages of Bureau of Investigation reports, this historical detective saga traces the four-year hunt for the perpetrators, a worldwide effort that spread as far as Italy and the new Soviet nation. It also gives readers the decades-long but little-known history of homegrown terrorism that helped to shape American society a century ago. The book delves into the lives of victims, suspects, and investigators: world banking power J.P. Morgan, Jr.; labor radical "Big Bill" Haywood; anarchist firebrands Emma Goldman and Luigi Galleani; "America's Sherlock Holmes," William J. Burns; even a young J. Edgar Hoover. It grapples as well with some of the most controversial events of its day, including the rise of the Bureau of Investigation, the federal campaign against immigrant "terrorists," the grassroots effort to define and protect civil liberties, and the establishment of anti-communism as the sine qua non of American politics. Many Americans saw the destruction of the World Trade Center as the first major terrorist attack on American soil, an act of evil without precedent. The Day Wall Street Exploded reminds us that terror, too, has a history. Praise for the hardcover: "Outstanding." --New York Times Book Review "Ms. Gage is a storyteller...she leaves it to her readers to draw their own connections as they digest her engaging narrative." --The New York Times "Brisk, suspenseful and richly documented" --The Chicago Tribune "An uncommonly intelligent, witty and vibrant account. She has performed a real service in presenting such a complicated case in such a fair and balanced way." --San Francisco Chronicle

Now in paperback, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of J Edgar Hoover deemed "Masterful...an enduring, formidable accomplishment, a monument to the power of biography that] now becomes the definitive work"by The Washington Post (and everywhere else) "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 G-Man is the 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. Hoover transformed a scandal-riddled law-enforcement backwater, into a modern machine--one just as oppressive as it was promising. He rose to power and then stayed there, decade after decade, using the tools of the 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 to a strongarm for white supremacists and the politicized Christian right, serving eight presidents. 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. " 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 "Gage's triumph is her deft navigation through Hoover's 'deep state, ' while reminding us of the abuse of power that remains his enduring legacy."--The Boston Globe

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.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author of G-Man and notable historian Beverly Gage goes on the ultimate road trip to explore thirteen key places in American history that explain our past and help us envision our future. Two and a half centuries out from the US founding, the question of what it means to be an American is as fraught as ever. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Beverly Gage brings the highs and lows of our past alive on a road trip through the American past. This Land is Your Land visits thirteen places and thirteen key moments in American history to explore how we commemorate our national past and consider the future of our union. In this book, Gage hits the road to explore the museums, historic sites, roadside attractions, monuments, living-history pageants, battlefield reenactments, and souvenir shops where Americans so often go to learn--and fight--about our past. This Land is Your Land is for everyone who wants to find US history--to experience it and confront it, to celebrate it and condemn it--in the places where it happened. From the birth of the nation in Philadelphia and on the Virginia plantations to the rise of the Cold War Southwest and the advent of Disneyland, here is the story of America's successes and failures, along with the endless controversies over how we remember ourselves. The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a document that proclaimed the liberty and equality of all human beings, but yielded a country often riddled with conflict and injustice. This Land is Your Land is an invitation to explore and reflect on our deep national tensions--to understand where we are as a country by traveling through our inspiring, disturbing, and maddening past rather than turning away from it.

A groundbreaking, multi-award winning biography of FBI director J Edgar Hoover, a controversial colossus who dominated 20th century America.

America’s getting old. It’s soon to celebrate its 250th birthday. It’s getting harder and harder for its citizens to find anything to agree on, even the nation’s history. But it’s still possible to get out there and see the American past for yourself. And it’s a lot more interesting – and colourful – than any tired story of manifest destiny you’ve heard. Ride along with award-winning Beverly Gage on an epic road trip, a drive through US history in thirteen places: dropping by museums, a nuclear silo and a sex commune on the way. From the Battle of Alamo to Richard Nixon in Disneyland, Gage dives into America’s messy contradictions and discovers a country we still can love.