No political leader is more closely identified with Louisiana State University than the flamboyant governor and U.S. senator Huey P. Long, who devoted his last years to turning a small, undistinguished state school into an academic and football powerhouse. From 1931, when Long declared himself the “official thief” for LSU, to his death in 1935, the school’s budget mushroomed, its physical plant burgeoned, its faculty flourished, and its enrollment tripled. Along with improving LSU’s academic reputation, Long believed the school’s football program and band were crucial to its success. Taking an intense interest in the team, Long delivered pregame and halftime pep talks, devised plays, stalked the sidelines during games, and fired two coaches. He poured money into a larger, flashier band, supervised the hiring of two directors, and, with the second one, wrote a new fight song, “Touchdown for LSU.” While he rarely meddled in academic affairs, Long insisted that no faculty member criticize him publicly. When students or faculty from “his school” opposed him, retribution was swift. Long’s support for LSU did not come without consequences. His unrelenting involvement almost cost the university its accreditation. And after his death, several of his allies—including his handpicked university president—went to prison in a scandal that almost destroyed LSU. Rollicking and revealing, Robert Mann’s Kingfish U is the definitive story of Long’s embrace of LSU.

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.

In a captivating blend of photographs and text, Under Stately Oaks showcases over 150 years of Louisiana State University's past, following the evolution of the tiny Seminary of Learning of the State of Louisiana, founded near Pineville in 1853, into a university of well over 30,000 students for the twenty-first century. Thomas F. Ruffin has written an affectionate history of LSU, but it is also an honest one. The notorious scandals of 1939, the university's desegregation struggles, and free-speech alley confrontations during the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, as well as the football team's 2003 NCAA championship and the university's pivotal role in relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina -- all are chronicled here.From the red pantile roofs and honey-colored stucco of its Italian Renaissance architecture to the "stately oaks and broad magnolias" hailed in the alma mater, the distinct beauty of the LSU campus is unrivaled. The history of the state's flagship university is as colorful as the azaleas that adorn its landscape every spring. Its first superintendent, William Tecumseh Sherman, later opposed its first faculty member and future president, David F. Boyd, in war. Yet both also fought for an LSU curriculum that embraced a liberal education with a classical component. When LSU lost its state funding during the 1870s, it was Boyd who maneuvered a merger with Louisiana A&M College, a move that ensured LSU's survival and preserved its identity. In the 1930s, Huey Long demanded the best for LSU on many fronts, and by the mid-twentieth century the institution was not only the state's premier university but also nationally recognized for its prestigious faculty and cutting-edge research. This newly updated edition features a foreword by Chancellor Sean O'Keefe and a final chapter entitled "The 21st Century and Beyond," which details the concrete steps LSU has taken towards fulfilling its goal of becoming a nationally competitive flagship institution. The last chapter also portrays, in text and striking photographs, the central role LSU played in emergency relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina, and examines how the university is faring in the post-Katrina world. Under Stately Oaks captures the spirit of the university as never before. Though the book shows that much has changed over the years, it is primarily a celebration of the timeless aspects of the LSU experience and a compelling testimony to the university's ongoing commitment to progress.

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In the summer of 1959, A. J. Liebling, veteran writer for the New Yorker, came to Louisiana to cover a series of bizarre events that began with Governor Earl K. Long's commitment to a mental institution. Captivated by his subject, Liebling remained to write the fascinating yet tragic story of Uncle Earl's final year in politics. First published in 1961, The Earl of Louisiana recreates a stormy era in Louisiana politics and captures the style and personality of one of the most colorful and paradoxical figures in the state's history. This updated edition of the book includes a foreword by T. Harry Williams, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Huey Long: A Biography, and a new introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Jonathan Yardley that discusses Liebling's career and his most famous book from a twenty-first-century perspective.

50 Quotation puzzles from the pages of The New York Times Edited by Emily Cox and Harry Rathvon New York Times puzzles are America's favorite! Whether your tastes are literary or lowbrow, this latest installment of fifty of the Sunday Times' famous acrostic puzzles features quotations ranging from Herman Melville to Dave Barry, Stephen Jay Gould to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. So sharpen your pencil, put on your thinking cap, and get ready for some acrostic fun!