Hubert Humphrey was one of the great liberal leaders of postwar American politics, yet because he never made it to the Oval Office he has been largely overlooked by biographers. His career encompassed three well-known high points: the civil rights speech at the 1948 Democratic Convention that risked his political future; his shepherding of the 1964 Civil Rights Act through the Senate; and his near-victory in the 1968 presidential election, one of the angriest and most divisive in the country's history.