{"id":2446,"date":"2017-10-07T13:42:26","date_gmt":"2017-10-07T21:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=2446"},"modified":"2017-10-07T13:42:26","modified_gmt":"2017-10-07T21:42:26","slug":"review-enemies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=2446","title":{"rendered":"Review: Enemies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tim Weiner&#8217;s <em>Enemies<\/em> scratched my itch for a well-researched and clear history of J. Edgar Hoover&#8217;s FBI.\u00a0 An unbiased history of such an inflammatory institution is unrealistic, but Weiner does a solid job maintaining a scholarly demeanor as he chronicles the evolution of the institution.<\/p>\n<p>Depending on the context and the audience, the FBI may be a political spy agency, an elite law-enforcement and anti-terrorism unit, a bumbling group of copy trying to learn intelligence work, key federal support in important criminal cases, and a few more things.\u00a0 Weiner wisely does not lock himself to a perspective or summation of the agency but has clearly dug into the time line of an institution that protects its secrets.\u00a0 His scholarship includes interviews, documents and the usual broad bases that journalists use in prying these institutions open.<\/p>\n<p>His even handed reportage does not mean he hides embarrassing information or that he makes excuses for the Bureau.\u00a0 The illegal wiretaps and black bag jobs are all clearly on display and so are the remarkable successes at infiltration and enforcement. While one can guess at Weiner&#8217;s sympathies, this reader always had the impression that he was sticking to the facts as much as possible.\u00a0 The effect is a bit like Jack Webb without the camp factor.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, a remarkably well-executed and comprehensive history.\u00a0 Strongly Recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tim Weiner&#8217;s Enemies scratched my itch for a well-researched and clear history of J. Edgar Hoover&#8217;s FBI.\u00a0 An unbiased history of such an inflammatory institution is unrealistic, but Weiner does a solid job maintaining a scholarly demeanor as he chronicles the evolution of the institution. Depending on the context and the audience, the FBI may [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2446"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2448,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446\/revisions\/2448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}