From the moment he took office as governor in 1928 to the day an assassin’s bullet cut him down in 1935, Huey Long wielded all but dictatorial control over the state of Louisiana. A man of shameless ambition and ruthless vindictiveness, Long orchestrated elections, hired and fired thousands at will, and deployed the state militia as his personal police force. And yet, paradoxically, as governor and later as senator, Long did more good for the state’s poor and uneducated than any politician before or since. Outrageous demagogue or charismatic visionary? In this powerful new biography, Richard D. White, Jr., brings Huey Long to life in all his blazing, controversial glory. White taps invaluable new source material to present a fresh, vivid portrait of both the man and the Depression era that catapulted him to fame. From his boyhood in dirt-poor Winn Parish, Long knew he was destined for power–the problem was how to get it fast enough to satisfy his insatiable appetite. With cunning and crudity unheard of in Louisiana politics, Long crushed his opponents in the 1928 gubernatorial race, then immediately set about tightening his iron grip. The press attacked him viciously, the oil companies howled for his blood after he pushed through a controversial oil processing tax, but Long had the adulation of the people. In 1930, the Kingfish got himself elected senator, and then there was no stopping him. White’s account of Long’s heyday unfolds with the mesmerizing intensity of a movie. Pegged by President Roosevelt as “one of the two most dangerous men in the country,” Long organized a radical movement to redistribute money through his Share Our Wealth Society–and his gospel of pensions for all, a shorter workweek, and free college spread like wildfire. The Louisiana poor already worshiped him for building thousands of miles of roads and funding schools, hospitals, and universities; his outrageous antics on the Senate floor gained him a growing national base. By 1935, despite a barrage of corruption investigations, Huey Long announced that he was running for president. In the end, Long was a tragic hero–a power addict who squandered his genius and came close to destroying the very foundation of democratic rule. Kingfish is a balanced, lucid, and absolutely spellbinding portrait of the life and times of the most incendiary figure in the history of American politics. *Starred Review* Huey P. Long ranks as one of the most simultaneously loved and hated political figures in American history (one of those who despised him being none other than President Franklin Roosevelt). New source material affords LSU professor White the opportunity to not so much replace the classic and Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Huey P. Long, by T. Harry Williams (1968), as position his new book next to it, on equal professional and readability footing. The author allots one chapter per year (1927-35) through the years in which Long literally reigned over Louisiana politics, first as governor and then as U.S. senator (a reign that ended abruptly when Long was assassinated in the Louisiana capitol building). Readers witness an amazing coalescence of personal power by a character who neurotically insisted on being at the center of every conversation and room, the state of Louisiana, and, if he could have arranged it, the nation. Developed here is a record of dictatorship amazing to behold in this democratic-founded country as Long crudely but effectively gathered the executive, legislative, and political branches of Louisiana government into his own hands. Individuals moved by an absolute thirst for control are at once discomfiting and alluring to read about, and White's careful, straightforward, and sound picture of this American original will do nothing less than disturb and fascinate readers. Brad Hooper Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Richard D. White, Jr., is a professor of public administration at Louisiana State University and the author of Roosevelt the Reformer: Theodore Roosevelt as Civil Service Commissioner 1889—1895. He lives in Baton Rouge. Huey Long was the most entertaining tyrant in American history. From 1928, when he became governor of Louisiana, to 1935, when he was assassinated, Long's flamboyant style and brazen deeds provided journalists and their readers with more good stories than most politicians pile up in a lifetime. The Kingfish (a nickname he borrowed from a character on the "Amos 'n' Andy" radio show) cursed and bullied state lawmakers until they voted his way or were hounded out of office, sometimes in rigged elections. Vowing to help farmers and laborers of all races, Long forced the legislature to finance free textbooks for schoolchildren, build thousands of miles of new roads and slap a hefty tax on Standard Oil, whose Baton Rouge refinery was the largest in the world. Meanwhile, Long, who sometimes wore green silk pajamas while greeting official visitors, treated himself to