The Richard Buell Ogilvie who emerges from Taylor Pensoneau's political biography is a dynamic leader who presided over Illinois during a time of deep turmoil for the state and the nation, the final years of the Vietnam war.

Although he served but a single term as governor (1969-1973), Ogilvie presided over some of the most significant reforms enacted in Illinois for more than a century. He brought Illinois government into the modern era, revamping it from top to bottom to make it more responsive to the demands of the time and of the people. Showing extraordinary political courage, Ogilvie championed the first state income tax in Illinois and saved a fiscally crippled state from disaster.

In his second year in office, the Illinois Constitutional Convention produced the first new state charter in one hundred years. Ogilvie effected penal reform and was instrumental in upgrading the state's highway system. And in 1970 he established the machinery necessary to make Illinois a leader among states in the war on pollution.

Pensoneau provides a complete political biography. Although he focuses on the four-year governorship, he also covers Ogilvie's early years, his career as a tank commander in World War II, his stint as Cook County sheriff, and his work as a federal prosecutor, the high point of which was his successful prosecution of crime boss Tony Accardo. He also deals with Ogilvie's life from the time he left office in 1973 until his death in 1988.