Beverly Gage appointed John Lewis Gaddis Professor of History
Beverly Gage, an expert in 20th-century U.S. history whose revelatory biography of J. Edgar Hoover earned her a 2023 Pulitzer Prize, has been appointed the John Lewis Gaddis Professorship of History, effective immediately.
Gage is a member of Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences in the Department of History and holds a joint appointment in American studies.
A graduate of Yale College with a B.A. in American studies, Gage earned her Ph.D. in history from Columbia University, focusing on 20th century America and the evolution of U.S. politics. She joined the Yale faculty in 2004.
Her scholarship has been widely published in leading academic journals and the popular media. She is the author of two pathbreaking books. “G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century” (Penguin Random House, 2022), is a major biography of the former FBI director which offers new insight on his role in American politics. That book has received wide acclaim, earning Gage the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Biography; the Bancroft Prize, among the most prestigious honors for books in American history; the New York Historical Society’s Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize, which honors the best work of American history or biography; and both the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for biography. “G-Man” was also named a New York Times Notable Book of 2022 and one of the best books of 2022 by the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and the New Yorker. Her previous book, “The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in its First Age of Terror” (Oxford, 2008), examines the history of terrorism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, focusing on the 1920 Wall Street bombing. The book was the basis of a PBS documentary film.
As a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, Gage explored subjects ranging from the history of civil service “independence” to “law and order” politics to current dilemmas in U.S. foreign policy. At the Washington Post, she has written about the lingering effects of McCarthyism and the histories of the FBI and CIA, among other subjects. Her research on Hoover and the FBI has been widely featured in documentary films. She appears frequently as an expert on PBS News Hour, NPR, and C-SPAN, among other programs. Her scholarship is a model for how historical research can inform public discourse.
In 2009, Gage received the Sarai Ribicoff Award for teaching excellence in Yale College. She teaches courses on the American century, liberalism and conservatism in U.S. politics, historical writing, research methods in political history, and other topics. She has participated in the Public Humanities Program/New Haven Free Library series “Democracy in America,” and has been an invited speaker at numerous class reunions and alumni events. She previously directed the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy, and served on the Committee to Establish Principles on Renaming, the Yale College Steering Committee, and other university-wide bodies.
