Faubus: The Life and Times of an American Prodigal Book

This Is the First Full-length exposition of the life of Orval E. Faubus, thirty-sixth governor of the state of Arkansas, known most infamously from America's civil rights era as the governor who pitted his state against the dictates and forces of the federal government during the Little Rock Central High School desegregation crisis.

Son of a poor hill farmer with egalitarian and socialist ideals, Faubus was the last governor of the state who could claim a log-cabin childhood. He used that populist, "country boy" image in his campaigns and netted six terms as governor, from 1955 to 1967. In contrast to his stance against desegregation, he often followed moderate lines. For example, he forged legislative deals that allowed increased spending on education and benefits for the elderly. In the same motion, he could reform like a liberal and muscle aside freedoms like a radical.

Reed presents a well-written, comprehensive chronicle of these disparities as he deftly exposes the political machine Faubus built, a system of threats and favors, bloodhounds and senators, memos and innuendoes that allowed Faubus to maintain tight control over state government while garnering the broad popular support he needed to keep winning. In this close, personal history, the result of eight years of intensive research, Reed finds Faubus to be an opaque man, "an insoluble mixture of cynicism and compassion, guile and grace, wickedness and goodness", and, ultimately, "one of the last Americans to perceive politics as a grand game".