Jefferson Cowie

Jefferson Cowie’s book Freedom’s Dominion won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for history.

That Damn Smooth Stuff: Louisiana Demagogue

Jefferson Cowie, 19 March 2026

HueyLong – Louisiana’s legendary governor, senator and would-be presidential candidate – loved the campaign trail. ‘Watch me vaudeville ’em,’ he would say, as he climbed up to the speaker’s platform. He looked, as one reporter put it, like a ‘circus hitched to a tornado’, and his wild gesticulations were accompanied by merciless mockery...

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