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The First Populist: A Life of Andrew Jackson
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About This Book
A timely, "solidly researched [and] gracefully written" ( The Wall Street Journal ) biography of President Andrew Jackson that offers a fresh reexamination of this charismatic figure in the context of American populism—connecting the complex man and the politician to a longer history of division, dissent, and partisanship that has come to define our current times. Andrew Jackson rose from rural poverty in the Carolinas to become the dominant figure in American politics between Jefferson and Lincoln. His reputation, however, defies easy description. Some regard him as the symbol of a powerful democratic movement that saw early 19th-century voting rights expanded for propertyless white men. Others stress Jackson's prominent role in removing Native American peoples from their ancestral lands, which then became the center of a thriving southern cotton kingdom worked by more than a million enslaved people. A combative, self-defined champion of "farmers, mechanics, and laborers," Jackson railed against East Coast elites and Virginia aristocracy, fostering a brand of democracy that struck a chord with the common man and helped catapult him into the presidency. "The General," as he was known, was the first president to be born of humble origins, first orphan, and thus far the only former prisoner of war to occupy the office. Drawing on a wide range of sources, The First Populist takes a fresh look at Jackson's public career, including the pivotal Battle of New Orleans (1815) and the bitterly fought Bank War; it reveals his marriage to an already married woman and a deadly duel with a Nashville dandy, and analyzes his magnetic hold on the public imagination of the country in the decades between the War of 1812 and the Civil War. "By assessing the frequent comparisons between Jackson and Donald Trump…the hope is that a fresh understanding of the divisive times of 'the country's original anti-establishment president' might shed light on our own" ( The Christian Science Monitor ).
Reviews
"Brown's compelling new biography of a former American president depicts a man who was imperious and sensitive to slights and and collected enemies throughout his career...He ran for the presidency as a populist who condemned elites and convinced voters that he could turn back the clock in a changing America...Many denounced him for his autocratic tendencies, but the criticisms did little to slow his rise...While this description carries echoes of recent history, the presidency of Brown's subject commenced nearly 200 years ago...In The First Populist: The Defiant Life of Andrew Jackson, the author covers the early years, military service, and political career of the seventh president, the most significant leader between the eras of Jefferson and Lincoln...Brown, a historian and author of biographies of Henry Adams and F."
"Brown, a history professor and author of books on Richard Hofstadter and F."
"In this comprehensive and evenhanded biography, historian Brown makes a convincing case that Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) was the most consequential American leader between Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln...Brown documents how Jackson overcame an impoverished childhood in the Carolinas to become a lawyer and land speculator in Tennessee, as well as his rise to national prominence as a military commander during the War of 1812, when he defeated British troops in the Battle of New Orleans...Though Brown notes that Jackson's populism is relevant today, when 'economic inequality, liberal elitism, and demographic change in America' have once again encouraged a backlash against the status quo, he avoids facile historical analogies, noting that Donald Trump is one of four modern-day presidents (along with Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton) to hang Jackson's image in the Oval Office...Thoroughly researched and fluidly written, this accessible presidential biography will appeal to admirers of Ron Chernow and Doris Kearns Goodwin."
"The Schlesinger who oversaw the early polls that ranked Jackson so high, of course, was Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Age of Jackson, which lauded Old Hickory as a powerful president who ushered in a greater democratic order in the United States....Brown's Jackson is a dueler, a 'slaveholder, architect of Indian removal, and a critic of abolitionism'...Jackson, Brown writes, 'ruled by agitating, confronting, and dividing,' developed a 'cult of personality,' and 'practiced a politics of disruption and populism, while fostering and anti-establishment ethos'...The old Democratic Party hero has become a villain for those who judge historical figures by contemporary values, standards, and ideologies...So Schlesinger's hagiography has been replaced by Brown's political correctness...And our times suffer from an ideological wokeness that is obsessed with pulling down statues, renaming schools and military bases, re-interpreting history, and revising our estimates of historical figures who don't measure-up to 21st century sensibilities...For Brown, Jackson's politics prefigured Trump in racial animosities, populism, and partisanship...Brown's liberal ideological bias is clear for all to see."
"Does an excellent job at dispelling many of the misconceptions that have developed ..."
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