Master of Deceit, Marc Aronson
Master of Deceit, Marc Aronson
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Master of Deceit
J. Edgar Hoover and America in the Age of Lies

Author: Marc Aronson

Narrator: Luke Daniels

Unabridged: 4 hr 54 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/24/2012


Synopsis

“King, there is only one thing left for you to do....Take it before your filthy, abnormal, fraudulent self is bared to the nation.”Dr. Martin Luther King received this demand in an anonymous letter in 1964. He believed that the letter was telling him to commit suicide. Who wrote this anonymous letter? Most likely William Sullivan, an assistant director of the FBI.Who was Sullivan trying to impress in his campaign against King? J. Edgar Hoover. In this unsparing exploration of one of the most powerful Americans of the twentieth century, accomplished historian Marc Aronson unmasks the man behind the Bureau—his tangled family history and personal relationships; his own need for secrecy, deceit, and control; and the broad trends in American society that shaped his world. Hoover may have given America the security it wanted, but the secrets he knew gave him—and the Bureau—all the power he wanted. Master of Deceit challenges readers to explore Hoover and his secrets by offering dossiers of photos from his files, as well as FBI memoranda, movie posters, magazine covers, and cartoons from the era. Was Hoover a protector of America or a betrayer of its principles? What is the price of security? Here is a book about the twentieth century that blazes with questions and insights about our choices in the twenty-first.

About Marc Aronson

Marc Aronson has a doctorate in American history and is a member of the graduate faculty in the library school at Rutgers. He is an editor and author of many award-winning books for young people, including War Is...Soldiers, Survivors, and Storytellers Talk About War, which he co-edited with Patty Campbell. Marc Aronson lives in New Jersey.


Reviews

What the heck…….my review is not posted. Grrrrr!......more

Master of Deceit is a highly-detailed biography about an FBI Director named J. Edgar Hoover, written by Marc Aronson. The book unravels into not just a biography but deep descriptions of U.S. immigrant history, and the general growth of the FBI during that time. Hoover is portrayed as the prime exam......more

Goodreads review by Alicia

Highly provocative, Aronson discusses how J. Edgar Hoover is both a hero and anti-hero. The book is actually best summed up in Aronson's last words "I hope Masters of Deceit shows that we must always question both the heroes we favor and the enemies we hate. We must remain openminded, even when the......more

Goodreads review by Amy

I learned more about J. Edgar Hoover's intimidation of MLK from CHASING KING'S KILLER and (I believe) from the movie Selma. I had never learned this in school ... and I started to wonder more about J. Edgar Hoover.... so I looked to see if there was a YA biography on the topic.... and lo and behold,......more