Amidst the Fray: My Life in Politics, Culture, and Mississippi

by William D. Mounger, Joe Maxwell

Amidst the Fray: My Life in Politics, Culture, and Mississippi by William D. "Billy" Mounger with Joseph L. Maxwell, is a firsthand account of state and national political scandals such as the internal conflict of Republicans at the 1976 GOP national convention, the cloud of controversy surrounding former Mississippi Governor Bill Allain and Congressman Jon Hinson, and an inside look at the Watergate cover-up by the Nixon White House staff. Mounger documents his role in President Ronald Reagan's rise to power and how the Mississippi GOP regained momentum against the Democratic stronghold. US Senator Trent Lott said, "I consider myself one of the first generations of progeny of Billy Mounger's Republican generation."

480 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2006

Reviews

[Merle Temple · Rating 5 out of 5]

The ultimate insider look at Republican politics by the man who was a founder of the modern Republican party in Mississippi. A top fundraiser for Nixon and Reagan, Mounger had access to the White House and the deal makers in Congress. At times the book reads like a work of Shakespeare, Julius Caesar or Hamlet. The book shines a light into the dark corners of politics and illustrates why truth seems a fatherless child and honor but a homeless orphan in a party politics where everyone and everything seems for sale.

[Rhys · Rating 4 out of 5]

This tome is neither memoir nor autobiography. Mr Mounger gives his accounting of the way it was for his life's major milestones; those matters that mattered most to him. For Mississippians or anyone so courageous as to study the State, there is history worth reviewing in this story; also a colorful cadre of persons networked to move the State and the nation.

[Kenitta]

It explains in greater detail, the uprising of the Republican Party in Mississippi that is talked about in Mississippi Politics by Taggert.