Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times
by H.W. Brands
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Book Reviews of Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times
Book Review: Old Hickory Comes Alive!
Summary: 4 Stars
In this fine biography of Andrew Jackson, noted historian H.W. Brands presents Old Hickory in all his glory. Having been born and raised in Nashville, just five miles from the Hermitage, I've developed a keen interest in all things Jackson, visiting his home countless times over the last 30 years (not by design, I now live near Pensacola, Florida, where Jackson's presence and impact looms almost as large).
I probably would have been more impressed with this work had not I not previously read Remini's one volume life of Jackson. The latter work offers a bit more detail even with fewer pages. Like Remini, Brands is a great story teller, and presents his life of Jackson in the broader historical context of the times. His is a balanced, though favorable, picture of one who's often been unfairly demonized by the academic left. Brands carefully portrays the often angry, easily provoked Jackson as a mostly careful leader whose decisions (both military and political) were typically thoughful and well-reasoned, albeit often controversial.
Brands does a good job of relating the major events which most students have come to identify with Jackson -- his early struggles along the western frontier; his personal skirmishes over issues of honor; Jackson the Indian fighter who became a military legend at New Orleans; Jackson the champion of democracy who as president led the successful (if not somewhat misguided) charge against Biddle and the Bank of the United States.
Brands also clearly demonstrates how Jackson tilted somewhat "Federalist" after he became president. As he battled with Calhoun over issues pertaining to a state's right to "nullify" federal laws with which it disagreed, Jackson is seen as having moved significantly from a states-rights champion suspicious of federal power to a "preserve-the-union-at-all-costs" chief executive whose voice would find its greatest fulfillment with the rise of Abraham Lincoln. For Jackson, the success of democracy in the United States was clearly and irrevocably tied to the preservation of the union.
Brands follows Remini's lead in giving a fair treatment to Jackson oft maligned Indian policies. He points out that the removal policies set in motion during the Jackson Administration didn't actually take place (i.e. the "trail of tears") until the Van Buren administration. To his credit, Brands is quick to criticize Jackson's silence of the injustices which occured, while carefully outlining the reasons Jackson considered removal the only viable option for the Indians' ultimate survival.
This is a great read which I finished in just over three weeks of casual reading (560 pages of text). Give the ever-so-slight nod to Remini's single volume treatment of Jackson, but by all means read this 4 1/2 star book. Highly recommended!
Book Review: The Guy on the $20 Bill
Summary: 5 Stars
Too many Americans know Andrew Jackson only as the old guy on the $20 bill. But now Bill Brands has brought this seminal 19th Century figure to life for a new generation of readers with a fascinating biography of a truly extraordinary American.
Jackson, Brands writes, was nothing short of the second George Washington. In 1814-15, it was not at all clear that the fledgling republican experiment would survive. Secessionist sentiment swirled in Federalist New England. The British had torched the nation's capital, and demanded American dismemberment as the price of peace. Fresh off their victory over Napoleon, a British land and sea force stood poised to invade at New Orleans and cut the country in half. In opposition, stood General Jackson and a poorly armed band of army regulars, militia, pirates, ex-slaves and locals of sometimes dubious loyalty. It was, Brands says, America's darkest winter since Valley Forge.
That's when the second Washington emerged: Jackson turned back the British threat at New Orleans, destroying Wellington's Invincibles (under the commanded of Wellington's son-in-law) and ensuring that the Louisiana territory would remain part of the United States. Like Washington, Jackson rode battlefield success to two terms in the White House, ushering in a new phase in the American experiment: popular democracy.
Jackson went on to wage vigorous battles on behalf of the common man. Not all of them, well guided, in retrospect. His successful assault on the Second Bank of the United States would leave the country without a central bank - or an adequate means of controlling its money supply - for 70+ years, exaggerating the sharp busts and booms that marked the 19th Century American economy. On the other hand, although viscerally opposed to central authority and in favor of states rights, Jackson was a fierce patriot, believing that all liberty and all security stemmed from the preservation of the Union. He would bring this conviction home at the point of a bayonet when his native South Carolina threatened secession during the Nullification Crisis.
Jackson was certainly no angel. As military commander, he usurped civilian authority on more than one occasion. He engaged in duels and a wild street-brawl with men 20 years his junior (which nearly killed him), and possessed a hair-trigger temper, exacerbated Brands says, by chronic poor health. His Indian removal policy has drawn the opprobrium of modern critics far removed from the frontier dangers of the early 19th Century.
Brands portrays both the good and bad in Andrew Jackson, summoning all the narrative gifts he demonstrated so abundantly in "An Age of Gold" and "Lone Star Nation" as well as earlier biographies of Ben Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt. Highly recommended.
Book Review: OLd Hickory: The first US President who came from the common folk is a worthy subject of this fine biography
Summary: 4 Stars
Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) was a complex man whose greatest
achievement was preserving the United States from "enemies foreign and domestic."
Jackson was born in South Carolina losing his father at an early age. During the American Revolution his two brothers died and his mother was lost to illness. At 14 he was an orphan with
the marks of a British sword wound on his face.
Jackson was a tough Scotch-Irish survivor who would brook no
opposition from enemies. The frontier lawyer arose in Tennessee politics to serve as Congressman and Senator. As a major general in the Tn.
milita and later in the national army he waged victorious warfare against Indians (Creeks and Seminoles); the Spanish in
Florida and the British at the famed Battle of New Orleans on
Jan. 8, 1815. The stern, thin-boned and illness-prone Jackson emerged as the greatest military figure in US History since the
days of George Washington's glory.
Jackson fought in many duels; executed deserters and demanded obedience in military operations. He was a slaveholder whose Hermitage near Nashville was tended by over 80 slaves. The love of his life and longtime wife was Rachel. Their loving marriage was controversial as Rachel may have still been legally married to Lewis Rebards at the time she became a permanent partner to Jackson. The couple adopted children including an Indian child.
Jackson was the first non-aristocratic man to serve as our
President. As seventh chief executive he battled Nicholas Biddle and the Bank of the United States; nullification supporters such as John C. Calhoun and his chief rival Kentuckian Henry Clay.
Jackson's character is complex. He was a slaveholder and fought the Indians. He often acted rashly in military matters without approval from Washington.
And yet...he loved our land and wanted our nation united and
free from sectarianism. As a great leader he gave title to the
"Age of Jackson" as American expansion and growth became a reality and the nation moved into growing urbanization and industrial development.
Brands has done fine work in his previous biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt. While Professor Bonds has done a commendable job his work lacks the detail depth of
Robert Remini'classic multvolumed works on Jackson.
This work is, however, a fine general and popular biography of a man we 21st century Americans need to know better. The United States is better off because of the career of Old Hickory.
This book is well researched, illustrated and written. Brands
is one of our finest historians. I can recommend this book with
the hope it will be widely read and commented upon.
Book Review: DECENT, BUT BRANDS SHOULD WRITE VOCABULARY BOOKS INSTEAD
Summary: 2 Stars
Overall, not a terrible book. Very well researched as evidenced by close to fifty pages of sources and notes (approximately one page for every 10 pages of text). Andrew Jackson was most certainly an interesting character. That, along with the deep research, allowed the book to at least be tolerable.
I found Brand's writing style high-browed and frustrating throughout the book. He is a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin. It seems to me he is writing to a college audience, with the goal of having them scrambling for their dictionaries every page or two. He seems to enjoy using words which are beyond the scope of most people (including me, and I am a history buff with a Master's degree and 26 years of successful business experience). The language of Jackson's era was very formal and it occured to me as I read the book that Brand seemed to be competing with the language used during that period.
I'll allow you to be the judge by choosing some of Brand's actual words at random by flipping through the book. Note these are Brand's actual words in the text of the book and not quotes from the 1800's. Pettifoggery, prevaricate, entrepot, perfidy, inveterate, aggrandizement, vouchsafed, expatiated, plenipotentiary, apostasy, seditious, sine qua non, junto, bete noire, peroration, denouement and deistic. Hundreds of others exist in the book and these are examples only.
I am certain there are people out there, maybe in academic circles, who use these words in normal conversation and understand them (and who will no doubt scoff at my ignorance). That said, this book will not appeal to the majority of the population due to Brand's insistence on language which often is not understandable.
My low rating considers how awesome Andrew Jackson really was on a number of fronts and how good of a book this could have been in the right author's hands.
I would suggest readers read the recently published 1776 by David McCullough, THE PIRATE COAST (about Thomas Jefferson and the First Marines) or THE PIRATE HUNTER (Captain Kidd), the latter two by Richard Zacks.
I found all three books tremendous. Not only were they historical and informative but they were interesting and enjoyable to read as well - which is the major theme lacking in ANDREW JACKSON. Mr. Brand ought to shed the tweed jacket with the elbow patches, his pipe and stuffy writing style, and instead author books like these.
Ironically, the book aptly outlines that Jackson was the first "common man" to rise to the presidency - a true man "of the people". Unfortunately, Brands apparently does not suscribe that method of thinking personally.
Book Review: Restores Jackson's greatness while acknowledging his faults
Summary: 4 Stars
I saw Brands speak here in Dallas while I was reading this book, and I want to include a couple of comments he made to put the book in perspective.
Brands said he saw a disconnect in historians' view of Jackson over time. As recently as the 1950s, Jackson would have been on a short list of the greatest presidents of all time. But his stature has fallen in recent years, Brands postulates, because: 1) He was an unapologetic slaveholder, though a largely humane one; 2) He was an unapologetic and militant expansionist; 3) His actions in battle and decisions in offices led to the deaths of entire populations of Native Americans, particularly in the south. These three traits don't play well in the politically correct culture of today.
However, Brands does not focus his book on explaining away these so-called faults, though he addresses them and paints Jackson in somewhat sympathetic terms. Rather, he aims to show how Jackson is largely responsible for two things that current audiences take for granted: preservation of the union, and the spread of popular rule.
Jackson as a general helped preserve the union at the Battle of New Orleans and again as president when he stood down South Carolina's nullification of a federal tariff. He was the first "common man" to be elected to the presidency and led the charge to have electors chosen by popular vote, rather than by state legislators.
While it would be hard to envision a United States without either of these concepts now, during Jackson's time they were truly revolutionary positions. In a strong final chapter, Brands discusses how it was another man from what was then the American West, Abraham Lincoln, who carried Jackson's mantle on both of these through their greatest threat in the Civil War.
My only complaint with this book is that Jackson's presidency seems almost an afterthought. He isn't elected until nearly 400 pages into the book, and his eight-year tenure is covered in about 100 pages. Given that he would be the last two-term president until Grant, I expected more coverage of this period. However, there are other books on the topic of Jackson's time in office, and this book adds the perspective of the 60 years of his life that preceded it, including great anecdotes that describe his incendiary personality.
This is great history by a great historian and writer.