Customer Reviews

Andrew Jackson: Good, Evil and the Presidency

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As a teacher, this documentary was helpful in teaching the students the positives and negatives of Andrew Jackson. It was a great review of what we had covered in class and provided information that the students used in writing a persuasive essay.

I'll have to admit I bought this video because my son is in it! (He's one of the musicians very briefly shown in the inauguration scene.) That was my motivation for keeping the production around for posterity. However, I have to say that when I watched the program when it was aired on public television in 1/08, I was thoroughly engaged, entertained, and educated. There were many things I learned about Andrew Jackson and the early politics of the American presidency that I don't recall learning about in my school days. Among these was the fact that he was the first to actually be elected by popular vote, and in that, kept the presidency from being a "good old boys" legacy to be passed on to Washington insiders and power brokers. Trivia buffs and presidential historians will find this a valuable addition to their collections. For myself, it will be a memento of my son's 20 seconds of fame.

I teach 8th grade and generally documentaries are a struggle in terms of keeping students attention. But this one combines acting and narration very successfully. The kids both enjoyed it and, more importantly, learned a lot from it.

Positives: Good mix of acting and narration. Production is also very good.

Negatives: Only negative is really only a problem for teachers...like most documentaries, its made for adults so the language/vocabulary is not easy for younger kids (for my 8th graders we had to discuss lots of vocabulary prior to watching).

Yes, this might seem a little like revisionist history if your only
study of American History was in High School and you remember the two
pages of "Jacksonian" history they cramed in between the Revolution
and the Civil War. History takes years to unfold and to see
it clearly. Maybe Jackson was a product of his times, but during his
Presidency Indians and Slaves were not "white" and they were treated according to the customs of the times and Jackson did not change that.
There was even fear of them banding together to challenge whites, this is something I don't remember from High School history, but it helps explain the Seminole Indians Wars and the the Trail of Tears. Is that revisionist? No, I call that insight into the American Experience and the reason you study history: to find a cause.
He had the opportunity as every President did from the founding of our Nation, to challenge slavery and abolish it, as did the British during in 1833, DURING HIS PRESIDENCY. Instead he did as all other Presidents before him, he choose to ignore it and hope it would go away.
Another fact that I never learned was the assination attempt on Jackson's life. Great documentary on a controvertial President.


"Andrew Jackson was a patriot and a traitor. He was the greatest of generals, and wholly ignorant of the art of war. He was the most candid of men, and capable of the profoundest dissimulation. He was a democratic autocrat, an urbane savage, an atrocious saint."


- James Parton, Jackson's first biographer, 1859

I purchased this video to help my 8 yr old grandson with a school project regarding the "Trail of Tears." Although that part didn't come until almost 2 hours into the video, I learned many things about Andrew Jackson that I never knew. I would recommend this video to anyone who wants a good background on Andrew Jackson the man, his presidency, his character and the era that this all took place in.

This show is the sort of superficial pop history one expects from the History Channel, not PBS. A notable blooper was when the narrator informed us that Jackson and his wife quickly became pariahs of "Washington Society" after they arrived in the nation's capital in 1797 for Jackson to take his Senate seat; the glaring error being that Philadelphia, not Washington, was the capital of the United States at the time where Congress, the President and the federal government were situated.

I prefer historical videos so I am biased. This video is a good addition to your knowledge if you plan to visit the Hermitage. It gave historical depth to what you will see and the man. It explain his immense popularity at the time and explains, even as a slave owner, he was pioneer in the evolution of personal liberty. It would take others to move liberty to the next steps, of course.

I will admit that I turned this on PBS at 3 a.m., when I couldn't sleep, because I felt a nice documentary would lull me back to sleep. Was I ever wrong. The documentary was so engrossing that it kept me awake and when it was over, I hopped on Amazon to order my own copy because I wanted to see it again.

The most fascinating thing about the story of Andrew Jackson is how little we have progressed in all this time. The controversies are (mostly) the same, the scandals are (mostly) the same. Jackson used the media of his day the way politicians of today do. It was an absolutely riveting look at a period of history about which I was woefully ignorant.

I'm a High School U.S. History/U.S. Government teacher and this DVD is not worth purchasing. The director of this character assasination obviously had a political agenda(Note the poorly educated, and morally corrupt, liberal wing-nut actor chosen for the narration). The production(?)is not even historically astute about the overall era, issues, and politicians. I seldom regret spending money on U.S. History, but the level of sophistication of this work(?) is comprable to a doc on the Tudors,accusing Henry VIII of being a sexist.

Jackson was so popular that Jacksonian Democracy is still spoken of. He was an Indian fighter and a hero. He defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans, putting to rest any ideas Britain had of regaining power in America. Jackson's Nashville home is called The Hermitage. It has been a museum since 1889. I worked in the Andrew Jackson Building in Nashville while working for the State of Tennessee. Those three equestrian statues of Jackson are in Nashville, New Orleans and Washington, D.C. I put him #4 despite a modern tendency to misjudge him by the Trail of Tears story.