Reviews

The life of Republican Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina almost spans the 20th century. (He was born in 1902.) In addition to his service in the Senate, Thurmond was both a governor of South Carolina and the Dixiecrat (a state's rights movement) candidate for the presidency in 1948. Examining Thurmond's career, Cohodas pays particular attention to his strong opposition to racial integration and his role in the development of the Republican Party as a viable force in the once solidly Democratic South. She has written a readable, well-documented account of the Southern battle over integration from the perspective of one of its most highly visible conservative opponents. For an examination of how a liberal Southern Congressman reacted to many of the same challenges, readers may consult Carl Elliot and Michael D'Orso's The Cost of Courage: The Journey of an American Congressman ( LJ 2/1/92).-- Thomas H. Ferrell, Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette

This respectful biography traces South Carolina Senator Thurmond's career from his status as a ``consummate white reactionary'' to that of a savvy politician who courts black voters. Cohodas, a former staffer for Congressional Quarterly , reconstructs Thurmond's long political career, from judge to governor to senator, and describes his political strategies, including his pork-barrel politics. And she interweaves Thurmond's career with the story of civil rights conflicts in the South. But her interviews with Thurmond reveal little, and she does not probe his colleagues. Also, while Cohodas occasionally sees ironies in Thurmond's political transformation, her conclusion that his support of black Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas symbolizes a major change is undermined by Thomas's conservatism. Photos not seen by PW. (Feb.)