The Age of Jackson and the Art of American Power, 1815-1848
- ISBN-10
- 1612346065
- ISBN-13
- 9781612346069
- Category
- Biography & Autobiography
- Pages
- 361
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2013
- Publisher
- Potomac Books, Inc.
- Author
- William R. Nester
Description
As William Nester asserts in The Age of Jackson, it takes quite a leader to personify an age. A political titan for thirty-three years (1815-1848), Andrew Jackson possessed character, beliefs, and acts that dominated American politics. Although Jackson returned to his Tennessee plantation in March 1837 after serving eight years as president, he continued to overshadow American politics. Two of his proteges, Martin the Magician van Buren and James Young Hickory Polk, followed him to the White House and pursued his agenda. Jackson provoked firestorms of political passions throughout his era. Far more people loved than hated him, but the fervor was just as pitched either way. Although the passions have subsided, the debate lingers. Historians are split over Jackson's legacy. Some extol him as among America's greatest presidents, citing his championing of the common man, holding the country together during the nullification crisis, and eliminating the national debt. Others excoriate him as a mean-spirited despot who shredded the Constitution and damaged the nation's development by destroying the Second Bank of the United States, defying the Supreme Court, and grossly worsening political corruption through his spoils system. Still others condemn his forcibly expelling more than forty thousand Native Americans from their homes and along the Trail of Tears, which led far west of the Mississippi River, with thousands perishing along the way. In his clear-eyed assessment of one of the most divisive leaders in American history, Nester provides new insight into the age-old debate about the very nature of power itself.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
The Age of Lincoln and the Art of American Power, 1848-1876
By William Nesterand the Civil War, 1848–1865 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988); William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776–1854 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Michael F. Holt, Political Parties ...
-
The Jeffersonian Vision, 1801-1815: The Art of American Power During the Early Republic
By William R. NesterThe Jeffersonian Vision, 1801-1815, reveals how the nation's leaders understood and asserted power during those crucial years between Thomas Jefferson's inauguration as the third president and the firing of the last shots at the Battle of ...
-
What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848
By Daniel Walker HoweSee Andrew Burstein, America's Jubilee (New York, 2001), 181–204; Kenneth S. Greenberg, Honor and Slavery (Princeton, 1996), 53–65; Robert Dawidoff, The Education of John Randolph (New York, 1979), 255–59. 15.
-
African American Slavery and Disability: Bodies, Property and Power in the Antebellum South, 1800-1860
By Dea H. BosterThis volume uncovers a history of disability in African American slavery from the primary record, analyzing how concepts of race, disability, and power converged in the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century.
-
Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson
By David S. ReynoldsWaking Giant is a brilliant, definitive history of America’s vibrant and tumultuous rise during the Jacksonian era from David S. Reynolds, the Bancroft Prize-winning author of Walt Whitman’s America.
-
The Revolutionary Years, 1775-1789: The Art of American Power During the Early Republic
By William R. NesterThe creation of American diplomacy and power as an art
-
The Hamiltonian Vision, 1789-1800: The Art of American Power During the Early Republic
By William R. NesterThe creation of American diplomacy and power as an art
-
The Whigs' America: Middle-Class Political Thought in the Age of Jackson and Clay
By Joseph W. PearsonOther solid recent studies include Joseph F. Kett, Merit: The History of a Founding Ideal from the American Revolution to the Twenty-First Century (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013); Lawrence R. Samuel, The American Dream: A ...
-
The Rise of Andrew Jackson: Myth, Manipulation, and the Making of Modern Politics
By Jeanne T. Heidler, David S. HeidlerKeane was confident that Pakenham would be irresistible in the attack and invincible in finishing it, so the British waited. The man, the men, and the guns arrived on Christmas Day. Pakenham doubtless did not like what he saw when he ...
-
Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815
By Gordon S. WoodNow, in the newest volume in the series, one of America's most esteemed historians, Gordon S. Wood, offers a brilliant account of the early American Republic, ranging from 1789 and the beginning of the national government to the end of the ...