Robert “Bob” Mann is a professor emeritus of mass communication at Louisiana State University. He held the Manship Endowed Chair in Journalism at the Manship School of Mass Communication at LSU for 18 years. 

 

He is the author of ten books, including critically acclaimed political histories of the U.S. civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, American wartime dissent, Ronald Reagan, and the 1964 presidential election. His previous book, Kingfish U: Huey Long and LSU, was published by LSU Press.

 

His new book, also by LSU Press, is You Are My Sunshine: Jimmie Davis and the Biography of a Song.

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He has written for many national publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Politico, Salon, Vox, and Smithsonian magazine. From 2013 to 2018, he wrote a weekly political column in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. In the early 1980s, he covered Louisiana politics as a reporter for the Shreveport Journal and the Monroe News-Star. 

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Mann spent over 20 years in politics as a senior aide to US senators Russell Long and John Breaux and Governor Kathleen Blanco. In 2014, he was inducted into the Louisiana Political Hall of Fame.

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He and his wife, Cindy, are parents to twins, Robert and Avery. They live in Baton Rouge.