J. Edgar Hoover: A Graphic Biography

by Rick Geary

A True History of Violence (and Crimefighting, Politics, and Power)

In the hands of gifted cartoonist Rick Geary, J. Edgar Hoover's life becomes a timely and pointed guide to eight presidents--from Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixon--and everything from Prohibition to cold war espionage. From a nascent FBI's headlinegrabbing tracking down of Dillinger and Machine Gun Kelly in the 1930s to Hoover's increasingly paranoid post-WWII authorizing...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809095033
• ISBN13: 9780809095032
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Hill & Wang
• Length: 102 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Takes One To Know One

This book gets 5 stars for the illustrations, as Geary is very good. But as for the text, this is another subject. I see Publishers Weekly calls Hoover ultra conservative and fascist, which is probably how Geary sees him too, which is the tone of the book. He doesn't seem to have any fondness for Hoover and puts him down and seems himself to be sympathetic to leftist causes, so isn't this really the pot calling the kettle black. Two sides to every story and two outlooks to government issues, etc. Hoover might have laid it on strong in some areas, but in general he was a true American and played a great role in its history. What lasting damage has anything Hoover did still exists? If not him then probably someone else. I, for one, admire him. I will give Geary credit for making disclaimers that in all the things people put Hoover down for, that they either were never proved or that there was nothing to substantiate the allegations.

Rick Geary Takes a Look at Hoover and the FBI

Rick Geary does it again with his graphic biography of an American icon, J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI. He uses his trademark illustrative style to chart the course of Hoover's life from birth to death, and all points in between. Hoover is now a controversial figure thanks to some scandalous, yet unproven rumors (mostly about his personal life), but Geary treats his subject matter fairly, and portrays Hoover in an unbiased fashion. This is a new venture from Geary's excellent "Treasury of Victorian Crime" series, and it does not disappoint. Anyone looking for a concise, yet thoroughly enjoyable biography of Hoover need look no further.