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Author: Richard Gid Powers Publisher: ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 384
Book Description
Calling the Police Calling the G-Men Calling all Americans to War on the Underworld was the sign-on of the first radio program to portray the agents of the FBI as action heroes. Thus began the remarkable collaboration between the government agency and the merchants of popular culture that was to continue for over forty years.In "G-Men "Richard Gid Powers explores the cultural forces that permitted the rise and fostered the fall of the nation s secret police as national heroes. He examines popular attitudes toward crime from the standpoint of functionalist (Durkheimian) theory and surveys the FBI s image in popular entertainment from the thirties to the recent Today s FBI as a vicarious ritual of national solidarity to explain the popularity of the action detective formula. Soundly based on extensive research and interviews, the book provides an account of how the FBI and the mass entertainment industry were able to transform the bureau and its biggest cases into popular mythology.Hoover and his FBI became national heroes through identification with the action detective hero of crime entertainment. Hoover s popular culture role made him and his bureau sacrosanct symbols of national pride and unity, but in turn made it very difficult for them to do anything that would not conform to the public s preconceptions about action heroes. Powers shows that the dynamics of popular culture are integral to an explanation of the collapse of the bureau s reputation following Hoover s death. Had Hoover and the popularizers of the FBI not attempted to turn the popular culture G-Man into an embodiment of traditional American virtues, the illegal activities that came to light following Hoover s death would have been excused as inconsequential in the larger context of a hard-boiled War on the Underworld. """G-Men "examines a classic case of the manipulation of popular culture for political power. Seldom in American culture has such manipulation been so successful. As Powers states: At the same time Hoover was casting his shadow over American public life his G-Men were the stars of movies, radio adventures, comics, pulp magazines, television series, even bubble gum cards. But he finds that Hooverfar from controlling his own destiny and the power of the agency he had builtwas created, shaped, and then destroyed by the dynamics of popular culture and the public expectations it generated."
Author: Richard Gid Powers Publisher: ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 384
Book Description
Calling the Police Calling the G-Men Calling all Americans to War on the Underworld was the sign-on of the first radio program to portray the agents of the FBI as action heroes. Thus began the remarkable collaboration between the government agency and the merchants of popular culture that was to continue for over forty years.In "G-Men "Richard Gid Powers explores the cultural forces that permitted the rise and fostered the fall of the nation s secret police as national heroes. He examines popular attitudes toward crime from the standpoint of functionalist (Durkheimian) theory and surveys the FBI s image in popular entertainment from the thirties to the recent Today s FBI as a vicarious ritual of national solidarity to explain the popularity of the action detective formula. Soundly based on extensive research and interviews, the book provides an account of how the FBI and the mass entertainment industry were able to transform the bureau and its biggest cases into popular mythology.Hoover and his FBI became national heroes through identification with the action detective hero of crime entertainment. Hoover s popular culture role made him and his bureau sacrosanct symbols of national pride and unity, but in turn made it very difficult for them to do anything that would not conform to the public s preconceptions about action heroes. Powers shows that the dynamics of popular culture are integral to an explanation of the collapse of the bureau s reputation following Hoover s death. Had Hoover and the popularizers of the FBI not attempted to turn the popular culture G-Man into an embodiment of traditional American virtues, the illegal activities that came to light following Hoover s death would have been excused as inconsequential in the larger context of a hard-boiled War on the Underworld. """G-Men "examines a classic case of the manipulation of popular culture for political power. Seldom in American culture has such manipulation been so successful. As Powers states: At the same time Hoover was casting his shadow over American public life his G-Men were the stars of movies, radio adventures, comics, pulp magazines, television series, even bubble gum cards. But he finds that Hooverfar from controlling his own destiny and the power of the agency he had builtwas created, shaped, and then destroyed by the dynamics of popular culture and the public expectations it generated."
Author: C. Culleton Publisher: Springer ISBN: 1403973490 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 232
Book Description
Several years ago on a whim, Culleton requested James Joyce's FBI file. Hoover had Joyce under surveillance as a suspected Communist, and the chain of cross-references that Culleton followed from Joyce's file lead her to obscenity trials and, less obviously, to a plot to assassinate Irish labour leader James Larkin. Hoover devoted a great deal of energy to keeping watch on intellectuals and considered literature to be dangerous on a number of levels. Joyce and the G-Men explores how these linkages are indicative of the culture of the FBI under Hoover, and the resurgence of American anti-intellectualism.
Author: Richard Gid Powers Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1982154497 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 624
Book Description
A well-researched biography about the public and private life of J. Edgar Hoover—former FBI director and America’s most controversial law enforcer—that draws on previously unknown personal documents, a study of FBI files, and the presidential papers of nine administrations. Secrecy and Power is a full biography of former FBI director, covering all aspects of Hoover’s controversial career from the Red Scare following World War I to the 1960s and his personal vendettas against Martin Luther King and the civil rights and antiwar movements.
Author: Beverly Gage Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 0593492617 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 897
Book Description
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.
Author: Ray Broadus Browne Publisher: Popular Press ISBN: 9780879721619 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 364
Book Description
This collection of essays examines various rituals and ceremonies in American popular culture, including architecture, religion, television viewing, humor, eating, and dancing.
Author: Beverly Gage Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 0593511468 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 897
Book Description
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
Author: Matthew Cecil Publisher: University Press of Kansas ISBN: 0700623051 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 350
Book Description
Hunting down America's public enemies was just one of the FBI's jobs. Another—perhaps more vital and certainly more covert—was the job of promoting the importance and power of the FBI, a process that Matthew Cecil unfolds clearly for the first time in this eye-opening book. The story of the PR men who fashioned the Hoover era, Branding Hoover's FBI reveals precisely how the Bureau became a monolithic organization of thousands of agents who lived and breathed a well-crafted public relations message, image, and worldview. Accordingly, the book shows how the public was persuaded—some would say conned—into buying and even bolstering that image. Just fifteen years after a theater impresario coined the term “public relations,” the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover began practicing a sophisticated version of the activity. Cecil introduces those agency PR men in Washington who put their singular talents to work by enforcing and amplifying Hoover's message. Louis B. Nichols, overseer of the Crime Records Section for more than twenty years, was a master of bend-your-ear networking. Milton A. Jones brought meticulous analysis to bear on the mission; Fern Stukenbroeker, a gift for eloquence; and Cartha “Deke” DeLoach, a singular charm and ambition. Branding Hoover's FBI examines key moments when this dedicated cadre, all working under the protective wing of Associate Director Clyde Tolson, manipulated public perceptions of the Bureau (was the Dillinger triumph really what it seemed?). In these critical moments, the book allows us to understand as never before how America came to see the FBI's law enforcement successes and overlook the dubious accomplishments, such as domestic surveillance, that truly defined the Hoover era.
Author: Douglas M. Charles Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 862
Book Description
This authoritative set provides a one-stop resource for understanding specific FBI controversies as well as for those looking to understand the full history, law enforcement authority, and inner workings of the nation's most famous and important federal law enforcement agency. This authoritative two-volume reference resource uses a combination of encyclopedia entries and primary sources to provide a comprehensive overview of the FBI, detailing its history, most famous leaders and agents, institutional structure and authority, law enforcement responsibilities, reporting relationships to other parts of government, and major events and controversies. Today the FBI sits squarely at the intersection of major controversies surrounding the presidential campaign and administration of Donald Trump, foreign interference in U.S. elections, and politicization of law enforcement. But the FBI has always been in the political spotlight—its history is dotted with episodes that have come under heavy scrutiny, from its surveillance of civil rights leaders during the 1960s to the methods it employs to combat domestic terrorism in the post-9/11 era. And all the while, FBI agents and offices across the country continue to investigate a wide range of lawbreaking, from organized crime (in all its facets) to white-collar crime and corruption by public officials.
Author: Lee Grieveson Publisher: Rutgers University Press ISBN: 9780813535579 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 328
Book Description
Mob Culture offers a long-awaited, fresh look at the American gangster film, exposing its hidden histories from the Black Hand gangs of the early twentieth century to The Sopranos. Departing from traditional approaches that have typically focused on the "nature" of the gangster, the editors have collected essays that engage the larger question of how the meaning of criminality has changed over time. Grouped into three thematic sections, the essays examine gangster films through the lens of social, gender, and racial/ethnic issues.
Author: Michael Newton Publisher: McFarland ISBN: 1476645337 Category : True Crime Languages : en Pages : 287
Book Description
Between 1933 and 1939, the FBI pursued an aggressive, highly publicized nationwide campaign against a succession of Depression era "public enemies," including John Dillinger, George "Baby Face" Nelson, Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd, George "Machine Gun Kelly" Barnes, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, and the Ma Barker Gang. Bureau Director J. Edgar Hoover's successes in this crusade made him the hero of law and order in the public mind. This historical analysis reveals the agency's often illegal tactics, including torture, frame-ups, and summary executions--later expanded throughout Hoover's 48-year reign in Washington, D.C., and exposed only after his death (some say murder) in 1972.
Author: Richard Gid Powers
Author: Richard Gid Powers
Author: C. Culleton
Author: Richard Gid Powers
Author: Beverly Gage
Author: Ray Broadus Browne
Author: Beverly Gage
Author: Matthew Cecil![The Federal Bureau of Investigation [2 volumes] PDF](https://books.google.com/books/content/images/frontcover/PkXPEAAAQBAJ?fife=w80-h100)
Author: Douglas M. Charles
Author: Lee Grieveson
Author: Michael Newton