The Passions of Andrew Jackson

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xxi, [1], 292, [4] pages. Map. Illustrations. Appendix. Notes. Index. Minor edge soiling. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Andrew Burstein is the Charles P. Manship Professor of History at Louisiana State University and the author, most recently, of DEMOCRACY'S MUSE, a book demonstrating how Thomas Jefferson's life and legacy have been used for partisan purposes. Other titles by Professor Burstein include a critical examination of the seventh president, The Passions of Andrew Jackson (Knopf, 2003). Professor Burstein has taught at LSU since 2008, after eight years at the University of Tulsa and four at the University of Northern Iowa. With his partner, Nancy Isenberg, Professor Burstein has coauthored the acclaimed dual biography Madison and Jefferson, the first full-length study in more than a half-century of the two founding era presidents whose friendship did so much to shape American political history. Andrew Jackson of Tennessee left a vast personal correspondence detailing his stormy relationship with the world of early America. He helped shape the American personality, yet he remains largely unknown to most modern readers. Now historian Andrew Burstein brings back Jackson with all his audacity and hot-tempered rhetoric. Declared a national hero upon his stunning victory over the British at the 1815 Battle of New Orleans, this uncompromising soldier capitalized on his fame and found the presidency within his grasp. Yet Burstein shows that Jackson had conceived no political direction for the country. His ambition to acquire wealth and achieve prominence was matched only by his confidence that he alone could restore virtue to American politics. He lost the election of 1824 on a technicality, owing to the manipulations of Henry Clay. Jackson partisans ran him again, with a vengeance, so that he became, from 1829 to 1837, a president bent on shaping the country to his will. . Burstein gives us our first major reevaluation of Jackson's life in a generation.