The Political Career of W. Kerr Scott

"This book is the product of a mature and consummate historian who has mastered a wide range of primary and secondary sources. Pleasants writes with clarity and authority, tracing the political career of William Kerr Scott from his years as commissioner of agriculture in North Carolina, through his governorship (1949-1953), to his brief tenure as U.S. senator (1954-1958)."—Jeffrey J. Crow, Deputy Secretary, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources (ret.)

"If not for Kerr Scott I would never have run for Governor. My family viewed Scott as our political savior. . . .He improved our roads, our schools, and our healthcare. He was our champion, and I hoped in my political career to be like him."—former North Carolina Governor James B. Hunt, Jr.

"The Kerr Scott that emerges from this well-balanced biography is that of a blunt-spoken, often-controversial, pragmatic politician, who stood up for rural and working people, and stood against the powerful of his post-War era. Historian Julian Pleasants tells the compelling and complex story of an aggressive populist Democrat whose contributions to the modernization of North Carolina shifted the trajectory of a Southern state."—Ferrel Guillory, Director of the Program on Public Life, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

"At last, a major biography of the most liberal governor in twentieth century North Carolina. Senior historian of North Carolina politics, Julian Pleasants, has written his best book: a superb study of Kerr Scott who upset the Tar Heel political establishment in 1948 with a common man appeal to farmers and labor. Scott combined New Deal economic liberalism with racial moderation and investment in the infrastructure for schools, roads and water resources to transform the state."—Anthony J. Badger, author of FDR: The First Hundred Days

"[W]ell worth a spot in the library of those who will groom our political landscape in the future."—The Charlotte Observer

"Pleasant's well-written book illuminates Scott's progressive legislation and his interactions with future political leaders of the state. The Political Career of W. Kerr Scott is worthy of recommendation as a well-crafted and well-researched book on one of North Carolina's most influential twentieth-century governors."—Journal of Southern History

"[An] engaging biography."—The Southeastern Librarian