Harpster, Jack.  100 Years in the Nevada Governor’s Mansion.  Las Vegas: Stephens Press, 2009. 256 pages, $39.95 (hardcover)—Nevadans are a peculiar people when it comes to politics: proud of their State, yet largely indifferent to its political history; less regulated than most states in the Union, yet hostile and suspicious of an entity monolithically conceived of as “the government”; they consider a part-time, non-paid Legislature that meets only four months every two years as a crucial part of their constitution, and yet impose term-limits on all office holders for fear that they may become too entrenched and profit too much from the public trust.

In all likelihood, then, the Nevada Governor’s Mansion excites the imaginations of Nevada residents very little, and to the extent it does, it probably represents a luxury or perquisite purchased at the expense of the honest citizen.  Jack Harpster’s 100 Years in the Nevada Governor’s Mansion presents such a tour-de-force of State history, personal narrative, and beautiful photographs and illustrations that it will surely disarm the native attitude toward its political system.  Published in the year of the institution’s centennial, 100 Years uses the Governor’s Mansion as the occasion for presenting a cross-section of Nevada’s past, mostly of Nevada’s chief executives, their personal stories, and their activities while in office.

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