Customer Reviews

FBI 100 Years: An Unofficial History

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In its institutional lifetime, few agencies have been as revered and reviled as the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Former law enforcement officer Henry Holden supplies a comprehensive, insightful and balanced account of the FBI's first 100 years in this 2011 coffee-table volume from Zenith Books.

The FBI traces its history back to 1908 when the Department of Justice created an investigative branch. The Bureau of Investigation had a checkered history until J. Edgar Hoover was appointed Director in 1924. Under Hoover's almost-half century reign, the FBI was transformed, eventually gaining a second-to-none crime-fighting reputation. Following Hoover's death in 1972, the FBI went into decline due to revelations about Hoover and the FBI's uneven record against 20th Century crime, Communism, etc. along with a series of directors ranging from mediocre to first-rate. Subsequent debacles such as Ruby Ridge, Waco, turncoat Robert Hanssen and 9/11 undercut efforts to restore the Bureau's luster.

Holden recounts the FBI's history chronologically in a series of chapters entitled: 'The Wild West Years;' 'J. Edgar Hoover,' 'Gangbusters,' 'Blacklists, Blackmail and McCarthyism,' 'Civil Rights, the KKK and Political Unrest;' and so on. It's a history populated by individuals, organizations and events such as Lindbergh, Dillinger, 'Machine Gun' Kelly, the Kansas City Massacre, the KKK, Nazi saboteurs, HUAC, Whitaker Chambers, the Rosenbergs, RICO, Watergate, John Walker and the Oklahoma City bombing.

Holden does a fine job summarizing and analyzing the institution's successes and failures, which, for a large part of the Bureau's existence, mirrored Hoover's personal agenda. For example, despite clear evidence to the contrary, the FBI did not move on organized crime until the 1950s because Hoover did not believe such an organization existed. Nor does Holden skim over controversies involving the FBI, including Hoover's private life and his notorious secret files.

Holden's book is nicely-illustrated. The book's 250-odd pages are chock full of dozens of b&w and color vintage and contemporary photographs, illustrations, diagrams, posters and memorabilia.

In summary, FBI 100 YEARS, AN UNOFFICAL HISTORY is an informative, evenhanded and eminently readable history of America's most-famous crime-fighting organization. Recommended.

Aside from the cost of the book to me (a fraction of the list price in several bookstores) it brought back many memories--some good and some not so. Excellent & balanced presentation.