"The Improbable Life of the "Arkansas Democrat is based on more than one hundred interviews with employees of the "Democrat," including editors, reporters, feature writers, cartoonists, circulation managers, business managers, salespeople, typesetters and others, from the 1930s through the early 1990s, when the Democrat took over the more prominent "Arkansas Gazette" after an aggressive newspaper war.

This new addition to Arkansas journalism history provides vivid details about what it was like to work at the "Democrat." August Engel, who led the paper with focused devotion for forty-two...