Oxford, MS: Nautilus (2016)

Limited Edition. Signed.

One of 200 numbered copies signed by the author and bound in dark brown leather with a matching slip case.


During its two hundred year history, Mississippi has been governed by fifty-three men who have held the state’s highest office. Noted historian David Sansing brings each governor to life in his new book, Mississippi Governors: Soldiers, Statesmen, Scholars, Scoundrels, available this fall from the Nautilus Publishing Company.

The book, which will be launched in celebration of Mississippi’s bicentennial year, is filled with candid, illustrated, never-before- published biographical sketches. The sketches vary in length according to the significance of each governor’s administration, and to Sansing’s own fascination with certain governors, like Poindexter, Foote, Bilbo, Waller, and Winter.

On these pages, readers will find forward-thinking politicians who fought for underdogs, education, and civil rights. They will also encounter governors who settled disputes by dueling (one had a penchant for shooting on “Two”), scandalous tort settlements that made the front page of the New York Times, and one former first lady who held a press conference on the courtroom steps, post-divorce, announcing her intent to use the proceeds from her settlement to finance a campaign against her ex-husband for U.S. Senate.

Sansing, an eminent Mississippi historian, brings his great passion for Mississippi heritage and history to the book. A professor emeritus of history at the University of Mississippi, Sansing has earned degrees from Mississippi College and the University of Southern Mississippi and has made it his life’s work to study and record the history of the Magnolia State.

Mississippi Governors is Sansing’s fourth publically available book, and he has contributed to and authored many Mississippi history textbooks.

Sansing’s book will be only a piece of the many celebrations surrounding Mississippi’s bicentennial year, but it will bring to the celebration a gravity, hilarity, nobility, and intrigue which could only come from Mississippi history.

Mississippi Governors is a story of soldiers, statesmen, scholars, and scoundrels and is a celebration of Mississippi’s heritage and history on the state’s 200th birthday.