American Lion, Andrew Jackson in the White House
by Jon Meacham, 2008
I was extremely disappointed by this book. Mr. Meacham has managaed to take a fairly interesting character and times of our nation and make it exceedingly dull. He does this through too much repetition (as in the case of the tiff about Margaret Eaton), long quotes from dairies when shorter passages would suffice, and by somehow keeping the main characters impersonal. It is clear from this effort that Mr. Meacham is not a trained historian as the overall result is mediocre history at best.
I am currently reading a book by Barbara Tuchman about our Revolution and the contrast is stark. The events in her book flow and the characters seem very real. When she inserts her own opinions she does it in a way that does not seem overbearing. Meacham’s book tends toward the opposite.
Nontheless, I made it through the book and was rewarded with new knowledge of an era of which was unknown to me. I was particularly interested in the secession movement in South Carolina a generation before the Civil War. Compromise averted the splitting of the Union at that time, but only delayed the resolution until a later date.
I would look for another volume about Jackson and his times if I had to do it over again.
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