The Passions of Andrew Jackson (Hardcover)

by Andrew Burstein (Author) "Of the many controversies that envelop the turbulent world he occupied, Andrew Jackson's birthplace is one dispute with local repercussions only: both North and South..." (more)
Key Phrases: national metropolis, dueling ground, microfilm reel, Andrew Jackson, New Orleans, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
This book will not endear its subject to readers, even if the author is correct in the claim that he's made Jackson more "knowable." Burstein (Sentimental Democracy; America's Jubilee) writes fluidly and argues energetically. But that can't overcome the fact that, in his hands, the seventh president turns out to be an implacable, humorless, self-righteous, rage-filled zealot (all Burstein's words). Nor will the book make us think well of a man who, in the author's view, always acted on the margins of the law, constantly broke friendships, took politics as a means of righting personal wrongs and governed by letting loose fears. Burstein hopes that his work will counterbalance that of the many historians who have "missed" Jackson's true "character and impulses" because of the dazzling halo of his reputation as a great democrat. Acknowledging that the hero of New Orleans was a "significant" if "avenging" president, he also judges the Tennessean to have been "a man of platitudes, a mediocre intellect with a glamorous surface appeal" and a democrat for white men only. While tattering Jackson's repute more successfully than most of the president's 19th-century enemies, Burstein succeeds at two other things. Showing how Jackson strove to preserve the moral order that he knew, he makes Jackson something of a conservative. The author also clears up long uncertain facts about Jackson's marriage to Rachel Donelson. But it's not for the solution to scholarly puzzles that this book will be noted, nor for its spirited, sometimes convincing arguments, nor for Burstein's strained effort to make Jackson a tragic figure in the Shakespearean mold. Instead, it will win readers by stirring up controversy. 17 illus.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Andrew Jackson remains one of our most fascinating and frustratingly enigmatic presidents. He was the first president from the trans-Appalachian region and the first to come from humble origins. He had a passionate determination to represent the "common man," and he undoubtedly advanced the democratic transformation of our nation. Yet, by background and temperament, he was an unlikely Democrat. Subject to awesome rages that frequently exploded into physical violence, he often displayed contempt for those who lacked his physical strength, and his disdain for Native Americans and African Americans was extreme even by frontier standards. Burstein, a professor of history at the University of Tulsa, has written an excellent personality study that examines Jackson's ideas, loves, and hatreds without indulging in psychobabble or engaging in unwarranted speculations. He views Jackson's personal and political development within the context of his family background, upbringing, and the political culture of the newly settled West. This is a solid work of historical inquiry that adds to our knowledge about one of our national icons. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (February 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375414282
• ISBN-13: 978-0375414282
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.6 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #263,284 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable but disappointing, June 1, 2003

By	John B. Maggiore (Buffalo, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First and foremost, THE PASSIONS OF ANDREW JACKSON is compelling. This short book moves along at a quick pace. While the early life stories of some historic figures are dull necessities in larger biographies, Jackson's early life is the action-packed focus of this biography. The story of Andrew Jackson is a story of violence, sex scandal and adventure. Author Andrew Burstein does a good job of maximizing the drama of the story, and I enjoyed reading it very much.

Yet, while on the whole, THE PASSIONS OF ANDREW JACKSON is an enjoyable book, it also contains a major disappointment: Burstein's treatment of Jackson's presidency. Burstein set out to write a book about Jackson's character with an emphasis on exploring his friendships. He explicitly did not intend to chronicle Jackson's presidency, so his brief treatment of that part of Jackson's life was not especially surprising. It was, however, disappointing for a number of reasons.

To begin with, Burstein hurls the gauntlet in his introduction at other Jackson biographers, especially "the reigning Jackson authority," Robert Remini. His basic criticism of Remini, who wrote a three-volume biography of Jackson, is that Remini bought into Jacksonian mythology a bit too much. By contrast, Burstein sets as his goal writing about Jackson as he really was. I found the assault on Remini to be odd and out of place. Remini's last volume was published in 1984, so I'm not sure why Burstein felt the need to justify writing a new book. More importantly, by contrasting his own book with Remini's, Burstein suggests a parallelism that doesn't really exist. THE PASSIONS OF ANDREW JACKSON is much more limited in scope than Remini's work. Its focus is almost exclusively on who Jackson was rather than what he did.

Burstein falls short in not explaining enough what Jackson did. He assumes the reader's familiarity with the Jackson record and policy-making style. He alludes to important events associated with Jackson, such as the tragic "trail of tears," without fully explaining Jackson's role. Burstein probably could have done the job with an additional 20 pages, but it almost seems that the author lost interest in his own work at the point Jackson became president. The overall quality of the story degenerates after that. Burstein made his point already, the rest of Jackson's life is glossed over. The final several pages of reflective, explanatory writing seems almost redundant, which is a problem in a short book.

What is Burstein's point? It seems to be that Jackson was an impulsive, violent, unreflective man whose popularity was out of sync with his aptitudes for governing. His success at arousing emotional public support for short-sighted policies was the dark side of democracy. Beyond that, Burstein seems to very subtly be drawing a comparison between Jacksonian era politics and the politics of today, but this point is not developed probably because Burstein wanted his book to last. But by including this implied, under-developed comparison at all he fails to develop other implications, such as the idea that the early founders' elitist republicanism may have been a superior form of governance (another of Burstein's implications). In the end Burstein's only conclusions that stick are about Jackson's character, and not how any of this means anything larger.

The most disappointing aspect of THE PASSIONS OF ANDREW JACKSON is that there hasn't been a well-known popular Jackson biography published for several years. Jackson was too important a figure for "the reigning authority" to keep his crown for 20 years without a new contribution. As enjoyable as THE PASSIONS OF ANDREW JACKSON is, if Remini holds the title, Burstein does not quite pose a threat to win it.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Lazy Treatise, July 18, 2004

By	Kathleen M. Larkin (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews

Burstein seems to have been in a hurry to write this uninvolved book about a complex historical figure. His style is entertaining but he never delves into what Jackson DOES! I rather accept some of the assessments about Jackson's character as so totally self-centered that he couldn't keep a friend, take advice, or even adhere to the constitution, but I'd have liked to see more actual evidence put forth. Jackson's actual participation in the events he directed, caused, or undermined are completely skipped and replaced with a single opinionated point of view (which may well be accurate, but I'd rather form those conclusions myself).

I particularly dislike his arrangement of notes and the lack of a structured list of references. This (lately popular) method of substantiating the facts (or even opinions) in non-fiction books is an insidious attempt to thwart verification. I spent more time recording by hand the references I wished to check than I did actually reading the book. Why not list them in the conventional manner? It makes me suspect, especially when Remini is so cavaliarly dismissed.

Andrew Burstein is an entertaining writer, but this work is just too sloppy to be taken as a serious study of a complicated topic.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good book for a rainy day..., May 10, 2005

By	Barnes and Noble Junkie (Barnes And Noble, Midlothian, Virginia) - See all my reviews

While the book was a pretty enjoyable read, I am not really sure that Burstein accomplished what he set out to do.

It seems en vogue nowadays to go against the grain when writing biographies, and Burstein's effort is no exception. I decided to read this book after seeing an hour-long documentary of Jackson on the History Channel.

I was particularly interested in the executions of Ambrister and Arbuthnot. Ironically in a book filled with anti-Jackson material this event wasn't covered in as much detail as I figured it would be.

While it doesn't appear that Burstein set out to discredit Andrew Jackson's image, the book definitely trends toward the negative. Burstein uses a lot of Jackson's own words, and in many cases they aren't pretty. Burstein also keeps a running count of all of the duels, scuffles and scrapes that Andrew Jackson was drawn into to protect his honor. Burstein DOES discuss Jackson's devote love towards Rachel Donelson Robards, (even if the events leading up to the marriage are rightly questioned) and as well as his acts of charity, but the majority of the books serves to tear down Jackson's image.

Burstein does try to account for Jackson's flaws by discussing the political and social environment of the times, as will as addressing the fact that Jackson was the first President from 'the frontier', however I was left with the impression that Jackson was an extremist, when it came to protecting his honor. With Jackson there were no middle grounds, it was a personal affront to him to disagree with him politically.

Some of the book reads more as a general history book with Jackson as the main character rather then a biography. This is good in the sense that it may peak the reader's curiosity (as it did mine) to learn more about Burr, Calhoun, Clay and Monroe.

One very irritating part of the book, as one reader has already mentioned was Burstein's lack of structure with regards to his references. Bursteins uses 'notes' and while they are easy to follow, I found myself flipping to the back of the book way too much. What was really annoying was the fact that several of the notes were a paragraph long and should have probably been included in the main text of the book.

While Burstein uses his 'Introduction' to alert that reader that what he is about to write is not a 'heroic saga' as many prior biographers have written, after reading this book I was left wondering whether the definitive Jackson biography is still waiting to be written.