In The Rise of Andrew Jackson, David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler essentially take the Rogin view. The Heidlers, who in 2010 published a sensitive and luminous biography of Jackson’s great rival Henry Clay, here trace Jackson’s life through his 1828 presidential election, when he won his first presidential term ... The Heidlers are fine historians; their Clay biography is rich in detail and literarily vibrant. Clearly in the epic political struggle between Clay and Jackson, Clay is their man. They have rendered here a picture of Jackson that seems pretty close to what that great Kentuckian would have written back in the day.
Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed his admiration for Andrew Jackson, who he perceives as a 'man of the people' who was direct, impatient with diplomatic niceties, iron-willed, and bold and decisive in both his military and political careers. According to the Heidlers, the 'real' Jackson was dangerously impulsive and prone to violence ... This is a superb chronicle of one of America’s first 'modern' political organizations and national campaigns.
The Rise of Andrew Jackson makes a great introduction to the legend, the man, and his political network that created not just a president but also an epoch in American history ... The Heidlers tell an engrossing story that covers a remarkably complex history in relatively few pages. It is a true page-turner.
This substantive book by the historian Heidler spouses focuses less on Andrew Jackson’s controversial actions as president than on how he attained that office and, in so doing, permanently altered American political campaigning. Jackson won the presidency by gaining the votes of ordinary white men who viewed him as like them, someone who would be their defender against the entrenched interests of an American aristocracy, but there was nothing accidental about his rise to prominence ...This lively and insightful read teaches the reader nearly as much about today’s politics as it does about those of the 1820s.
Andrew Jackson arrived on the political scene at a time when just about every voter would have called himself a Republican of some stripe; political parties had not yet fully evolved, so contests tended to be matters of personality rather than issues. Jackson, write the Heidlers changed that, backed by two broad groups of supporters whom they call 'Jacksonians' and 'Jacksonites' ... The Heidlers are careful interpreters of contemporary politics, deftly limning the issues surrounding Southern sectionalism and parsing the differences that underlay the electoral battles between John Quincy Adams and Jackson and their claims to be true heirs to the revolutionary tradition of the Founders. In the end, they write, it was apparent that 'Jackson was the inheritor of the Jeffersonian tradition of limited government and fiscal prudence,' which did little to fend off sectionalist rivalries that would play out in things like the Missouri Compromise and the Civil War ... A thoughtful survey, though general readers may prefer more popular studies by Robert Remini and H.W. Brands.
