Beverly Gage

A zealot through and through, he ran the FBI like a religious sect.

The FBI’s first director built the agency around some of his own worst instincts.

The F.B.I. director promised to save American democracy from those who would subvert it—while his secret programs subverted it from within.

Behind his tough image, the longtime FBI director was a man of profound contradictions.

On the spectacular act of terrorism that took place in Manhattan a century ago.

J. Edgar Hoover’s ascent within the FBI reveals the birth of an unprecedented surveillance apparatus that would survey US citizens for decades to come.

Rachel Maddow’s podcast tells of American Nazis in the 1940s. But the era’s real and lasting authoritarian danger came from the growth of a national security state.

On the promises and perils of very recent history.