“The best biography of Long written to date.”—New Orleans Times-Picayune

“A remarkable work. . . . Of all the biographies of Huey Long, [Hair’s] best captures the atmosphere of public life in the Pelican State. . . . Written with passion and mordant wit, the book is literally hard to put down.”—Reviews in American History

“Well proportioned and tartly written, Hair’s book is notable for its conceptualization and exhaustive research, for its analysis of Long’s extraordinary control of Louisiana and his role in national politics, and for its interpretation of the Long phenomenon.”—Journal of American History

“A masterly biography of the redneck messiah. . . . A consistently engrossing portrait.”—Kirkus Reviews(starred review)

“A fascinating and highly readable look at the improbable rise, and fortunate fall, of one of the most dangerous politicians in American History.”—San Francisco Chronicle

William Ivy Hair (1930-1992) was Fuller E. Callaway Professor of Southern History at Georgia College in Milledgeville, Georgia. He is the author of several books, including The Kingfish and His Realm: The Life and Times of Huey P. Long and Bourbonism and Agrarian Protest: Louisiana Politics, 1877-1900.

W. Fitzhugh Brundage is a professor of history and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He is the author of A Socialist Utopia in the New South: The Ruskin Colonies in Tennessee and Georgia, 1894-1901 and Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930.