Born in rural Winn Parish, Louisiana, Huey P. Long grew up to become the most influential governor the state of Louisiana has ever known. Indeed, he commanded a power base that ultimately made him virtual dictator of his home state. The story of Long's remarkable life, from his turn-of-the-century upbringing to his death at the hands of an assassin in 1935, fascinates students of Louisiana politics still. In The Kingfish and His Realm, William Ivy Hair carefully sets Long and his regime in the context of the history of Louisiana and the South. He provides both a new biography of Long and a thoroughgoing treatment of his social, political, and economic environment in light of the latest scholarship. The result is a view of Huey Long that dispels many of the myths that have surrounded him and also challenges T. Harry Williams' influential interpretation. Hair emphasises Huey's darker side, portraying him as a gifted, charismatic leader who craved power above all else, the more of it the better. From childhood, Long believed that he could become president of the United States, and almost all of his actions were taken with that goal in mind. By the early 1930s, he thought the presidency was within reach. The book's detailed and convincing picture of Louisiana as an impoverished, underdeveloped state rife with complex social and class-based tensions goes far toward explaining how this ruthless, supremely energetic, power-hungry man was able to realise such grand political dreams at so young an age. When the forty-two-year-old Long was gunned down on September 8, 1935, it ended his drive for the White House but not his influence in Louisiana. Even today, more than half a century after his death, when political pundits no longer speak in terms of Longs and anti-Longs, Huey remains a larger-than-life icon in the state, and the most controversial character in its colourful history. The Kingfish and His Realm may not end the controversy, but it does significantly enrich our understanding of Huey Long and his world.

Historians have come to think on the late nineteenth century as America's Gilded Age. But in Louisiana it was a time of conflict and repression, turbulent years which engendered the social and political forces that ultimately produced the Huey Long era. Professor William Ivy Hair has captured the essence of Louisiana life and politics during this era, the decades that followed the end of Reconstruction. Using many quotations from newspapers and other relevant sources, the author has recreated in a readable narrative not only the political developments but the flavor of contemporary life and the prevalent emotions of the period. He focuses on the two major opposing forces in the state during the era: the conservative Bourbon oligarchy and the various protest movements of disadvantaged whites and blacks. To provide a background for a perceptive understanding of this political conflict, he undertakes a broad-gauged examination of the social, economic, and racial conditions in the state from 1877 to 1900. Beginning with the sordid story of the events surrounding the end of Reconstruction, Hair examines and analyses the Democratic oligarchy, the leading personalities involved, and its several factions. He examines the economic and social conditions of both rural and urban Louisiana, and discusses the Greenback-agrarian upheaval of 1878, the larger protest movement that followed, the attempted mass Negro exodus from the state during the so-called ""Kansas Fever"" of 1879, the spread of the Farmers' Union and Alliance of the 1880's, and the rise of Populism in the 1890's. Having crushed Greenbackism and related independent movements, Hair says, the Bourbon oligarchy proceeded to fasten upon Louisiana what was probably the most reactionary and least socially responsible regime in the history of the post-Civil War South. Bourbanism and Agrarian Protest combines thorough scholarly research and clear, perceptive writing. It covers every issue and every event of consequence of the era and is an excellent sequel to Roger W. Shugg's Origins of Class Struggle in Louisiana, which treats the period from 1840 to 1875.

One July week in 1900 an obscure black laborer named Robert Charles drew national headlines when he shot twenty-seven whites -- including seven policemen -- in a series of encounters with the New Orleans police. An avid supporter of black emigration, Charles believed it foolish to rely on southern whites to uphold the law or to acknowledge even minimal human rights for blacks. He therefore systematically armed himself, manufacturing round after round of his own ammunition before undertaking his intentionally symbolic act of violent resistance. After the shootings, Charles became an instant hero among some blacks, but to most people he remained a mysterious and sinister figure who had promoted a "back-to-Africa" movement. Few knew anything about his early life.

This biography of Charles follows him from childhood in a Mississippi sharecropper's cabin to his violent death on New Orleans's Saratoga Street. With the few clues available, William Ivy Hair has pieced together the story of a man whose life spanned the thirty-four years from emancipation to 1900 -- a man who tried to achieve dignity and self-respect in a time when people of his race could not exhibit such characteristics without fear of reprisal. Hair skillfully penetrates the world of Robert Charles, the communities in which he lived, and the daily lives of dozens of people, white and black, who were involved in his experience. A new foreword by W. Fitzhugh Brundage sets this unique and innovative biography in the context of its time and demonstrates its relevance today.