Includes bibliographical references (pages 181-206) and index.
Contents:
Chapter one: Andrew Jackson and his meaning to America -- Chapter two: Republican violence -- Chapter three: Frontiersman, citizen soldier, and hero -- Chapter four: Conqueror and hero -- Chapter five: The reluctant president -- Chapter six: The world is governed too much -- Chapter seven: Nullifying the nullifiers -- Chapter eight: True Republican, true American, and true heir -- Appendix : President Andrew Jackson's farewell address, March 4, 1837 -- Notes.
Summary:
""I'm not an Andrew Jackson fan, but I'm definitely a Bradley Birzer fan. His case for Old Hickory is as strong as any I've seen and deserves to be reckoned with."- THOMAS E. WOODS JR., author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History. "Most discussion of Andrew Jackson falls into predictable ruts, defaulting automatically to cliches that reflect more on our own time than his. Whether America is entering another 'Jacksonian' period depends upon understanding the first one more clearly, and we have Bradley Birzer to thank for taking up a spirited defense of this complicated man and his legacy." - STEVEN F. HAYWARD, author of The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution 1980-1989. "Liberal revisionists have pounded Andrew Jackson down to the point where Democrats are ashamed to admit he founded their party. In Defense of Andrew Jackson sets the record straight on America's first populist president." - JAMES S. ROBBINS, author of Erasing America: Losing Our Future by Destroying Our Past. "As a man and a military hero, Andrew Jackson is as American as they come. But in this timely biography, Bradley Birzer has managed to peel back layers of cliche and reveal our seventh president as a more complex human being than current textbooks allow." - GLEAVES WHITNEY, director of Grand Valley State University's Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies. "He was a man of the frontier, self-made but appreciative of those who gave him their loyalty and support. He was, pure and simple, and American..." Andrew Jackson was controversial in his time--and even more controversial in our own. Indian fighter, ardent patriot, hero of the War of 1812, the very embodiment of America's democratic and frontier spirit, Andrew Jackson was an iconic figure. Today, Jackson is criticized and reviled - condemned as a slave-owner, repudiated as the president who dispatched the Indians down the "Trail of Tears," dropped with embarrassment by the Democratic Party, and demanded by many to be removed from the twenty-dollar bill. Who is the real Andrew Jackson? The beloved Old Hickory whom Americans once revered? Or the villain who has become a prime target of the Social Justice Warriors? Using letters, diaries, newspaper columns, and notes, historian Bradley Birzer provides a fresh and enlightening perspective on Jackson --unvarnished, true to history, revealing why President Donald Trump sees Andrew Jackson as a political role model, and illustrating the strong parallels between the anxieties of Jacksonian America and the anxieties of the "Hillbilly Elegy" voting bloc of today. In this brilliant new book, Bradley Birzer makes the case that Jackson was. "The tide of working class anxiety that drove Donald Trump into the White House is not a new, 21st century American phenomenon. For Professor Bradley J. Birzer, who teaches a class on "Jacksonian America" at Hillsdale College, today's working class anxieties are all too familiar--as is the combative political climate and the rise of a controversial president. This riveting and fully human portrait of President Andrew Jackson places him within a living context of his time and draws compelling modern parallels, fleshing out Jackson as a no-compromise warrior and eccentric politician forced to navigate a crucial moment in America's history, when questions of national identity, political authority, religious authority, and the efficacy of democracy were seeping into all aspects of American life. Using diaries, letters, and newspaper columns from Jackson's contemporaries--including John Quincy Adams, James Monroe, Henry C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, and Alexis de Toqueville--Birzer gives readers a radically new and historically true perspective on Andrew Jackson, while probing how the anxieties and values of Jackson's supporters compare to those of Trump's supporters"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.