Young, passionate and determined, Willie Stark begins his political life as an idealistic man of the people, compelled by a desire to transform America. But when he is betrayed while running for governor in the Deep South's Mason County, he soon realizes that pure ideals are worth very little in the political world and that in order to succeed he must not be afraid of corruption. A bittersweet meditation on human weakness, All the King's Men is based on the true story of Huey Long, Governor of Louisiana in the 1930s. Eloquent, evocative and ultimately tragic, it is widely considered among the greatest of all American political novels.