Cheap Huey Long (Book) (T. Harry Williams) Price

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Customer Reviews of Huey Long

The finest political biography ever written
Since reading Williams' great bio of Huey Long, I have become fascinated by the Kingfish and have been looking for anything about him to absorb. That says a lot about the book. While Caro's books on LBJ are considered the gold standard of political bios, this book is slightly better. It is so detailed and so fascinating that you can breeze through the nearly 1000 pages in no time.

I suppose the one thing that stands out is how Williams is able to effectively show that Long was not the political boogeyman he is often painted as by historians like Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and many others. Yes, Huey was a flawed man and showed some dictatorial shades. But he also did many great things for Louisiana and was forced to use political heavy-handedness to deal with the vicious party machines that had controlled Louisiana prior to Long's emergence in 1928.

One could argue that Williams was a little too pro-Kingfish. He attempts to tone down many of Huey's character flaws and doesn't spend much time on Long's movement of state militia troops into New Orleans in an attempt to oust Mayor Walmsley. Nevertheless, despite this flaw, the book does well to balance against the very anti- Long views espoused by most historians.

I would suggest reading this book along with Garry Bouldard's book on Long's "siege" of New Orleans, and Ken Burn's outstanding Long biodrama. Both are available here on Amazon. Either way, this book was the best biography I have ever read and I would recommend it to any one with an interest in politics or with an interest in reading a compelling book.

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Though 30 years old, still the definitive Kingfish biography
Many on-line reviews of the book critique it as "slow", "plodding", "pro-Long", etc. Any definitive biography by definition covers all available detail on the life of its subject. Harry Williams does that indeed. In fact, by the standards of biographers such s Barbara Tuchmann, it is somewhat restrained. It is probably impossible to be ambivalent regarding Huey Long, but Willimas does look at hims as objectively as could be imagined. He seems to separate Huey the man- often coarse and boorish- with Long the master politician. Indeed, in the chapter "Power Unto Himself", he points out that Long changed, with the focus of his efforts shifting from what he could do for Louisiana to what he could do for himself. It is a masterful book, and after reading it, one feels tempted to style oneself as an authority on Long. If there is a serious shortcoming, there is no epiloug to analyze the Long legacy, itself huge as personified by brother Earl and son Russell.

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Wonderful!
This was one of the better biographies I've ever read. It was entertaining from start to finish and gave a detailed portrait of the man that was Huey Long, as well as of the world of Great Depression era Louisiana politics. Long was a flamboyant and interesting character. His politics while effective in most cases, were extremely divisive. He was among the first to take advantage of radio and ran extremely sophisticated political campaigns for his time. The book relies heavily on interviews with those who knew him and contains many highly entertaining stories about him. The one minor criticism of the book it that it doesn't talk much about the aftermath of his death. (Long was shot by the son-in-law of a political enemy shortly after he became a national figure and as he was preparing to challenge FDR for the presidency.) All in all, it is an excellent and entertaining read.