Content area
Full Text
The Three Governors Controversy: Skullduggery. Machinations, and the Decline of Georgia's Progressive Politics. By Charles S. Bullock III, Scott E. Buchanan, and Ronald Keith Gaddie. (Athens, Ga., and London: University of Georgia Press, 2015. Pp. xiv, 292. $32.95, ISBN 978-0-8203-4734-9.)
For a short time in early 1947, Georgia had three men claiming to be governor. The Three Governors Controversy: Skullduggery. Machinations, and the Decline of Georgia's Progressive Politics describes the events leading up to this unusual circumstance in great detail. Written by three political scientists, the book not only offers many anecdotes on Georgia politics in the 1930s and 1940s but also provides statistical data about election returns and voting behavior in the state legislature. Eugene Talmadge, "the legendary Wild Man from Sugar Creek," plays a central role in the narrative (p. 1). His untimely death in December 1946, right after he had won election as chief executive of the state, caused the gubernatorial crisis in Georgia.
In six chronological chapters, The Three Governors Controversy explores the background and consequences of the...