Books, Arts & Manners: Going to Extremes

Hard Right: The Rise of Jesse Helms, by Ernest B. Furgurson (Norton, 302 pp., $18.95)

Ernest B. Furgurson introduces Jesse Helms as a man whose “greatest impact is yet to be felt.” Furgurson, the Baltimore Sun’s Washington bureau chief, says Helms should be taken seriously. That’s why he wrote this book. Of course, Helms is already taken seriously by conservatives and North Carolina voters. The only people who don’t take Helms seriously are members of the liberal press. Therein lies the difficulty with this biography.

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Henry Klingeman

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Hard Right: The Rise of Jesse Helms, by Ernest B. Furgurson (Norton, 302 pp., $18.95)

Ernest B. Furgurson introduces Jesse Helms as a man whose “greatest impact is yet to be felt.” Furgurson, the Baltimore Sun’s Washington bureau chief, says Helms should be taken seriously. That’s why he wrote this book. Of course, Helms is already taken seriously by conservatives and North Carolina voters. The only people who don’t take Helms seriously are members of the liberal press. Therein lies the difficulty with this biography.