The Arkansas Rockefeller [Hardcover]

John L. Ward (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1978

This biography by John Ward, a former member of Rockefeller’s staff and director of his 1968 reelection campaign, presents the story of the first Rockefeller ever to live south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Winthrop Rockefeller was a man whose determination to build a viable two-party system in Arkansas and the South was matched only by his vast resources for doing so. Moreover, the book is a portrait of a man who lived his life openly, whose every success and every failure was a matter of public record for the two million citizens of his adopted state. Winthrop Rockefeller was a remarkable man, and in 1953, he chose to make Arkansas his home. Through his leadership and philanthropy, he transformed the state’s politics, economy, culture, and education for the better. The legacy of Governor Rockefeller continues today through the work at the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr (May 1978)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807102539
• ISBN-13: 978-0807102534
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,729,745 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Still the Only Definitive Biography of Winthrop Rockefeller, November 29, 2000

By 

Rod D. Martin (Grace Hall, Destin, Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Arkansas Rockefeller (Hardcover)

John Ward was a newspaperman who went to work for Arkansas Governor Winthrop Rockefeller and later became both editor of the Conway Log Cabin Democrat and a senior official at the University of Central Arkansas. His The Arkansas Rockefeller is the first-hand account of a true intimate, but it is not exactly what could be called an intimate account. While not a spin-job by any means -- Ward tells it like it is -- it reads much like the sort of biography that late 20th Century Presidential candidates have produced as campaign tracts: aimed at the masses, short, lacking deep detail.

This is not a criticism of Ward. Ward wrote precisely the book he set out to write, and it's a good one. This is, rather, a criticism of those (myself included) who by now should have written a scholarly biography of the man who represents the greatest turning point in the political history of Arkansas. We have all dropped the ball (though there is more information available these days than before, including my thesis, "Winthrop Rockefeller and the Enfranchisement of Arkansas Blacks, 1960-1966"), and we should all be ashamed of ourselves.

But in the meantime, we are stuck with The Arkansas Rockefeller as the only definitive biography of the great man. It's a good, enjoyable, informative read. It just shouldn't be alone.