by Jon Meacham
First published 2008
Jon Meacham presents Andrew Jackson as the president who transformed the American presidency into its modern form. Drawing from newly discovered family letters and private papers, Meacham examines Jackson's rise from orphan to the nation's highest office and his tumultuous years in the White House from 1829 to 1837. The author reveals how Jackson moved the presidency from the margins to the center of government, making the people rather than distant elites the driving force in American politics. Meacham explores the human drama surrounding Jackson, including his inner circle of advisers, family relationships, and the women who influenced his private world. The book shows Jackson as a contradictory figure who championed ordinary citizens while orchestrating Indian removal, a man both sentimental and ruthless. Meacham argues that Jackson created the template for presidential power that inspired Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, and Truman. This biography captures a president who embodied his nation's character, alternately kind and vicious, brilliant and blind, fighting to preserve the republic through force of will.
Genres: biography, history, 20th-century, american, 19th-century, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: contradictory-figure, power-dynamics
Setting: United States
Period: 1829-1837
483 pages · Hardcover · Random House