A Pulitzer Prize winning biography of one of the most controversial presidents in our nation’s history. Loved or hated by his contemporaries, and even still today, he turned the office of the Presidency into an active, powerful position of advocacy and one that would help save the Union in the decades to come. This book glorifies a complex and apparently hypocritical figure and gets a bit tedious in spots, especially in descriptions of Washington social life. But you will be left with a much better understanding of this highly influential figure, regardless of your personal opinions of the man. ( )

I liked the way it focused on his relationships and how they shaped his presidency ( )

(2008)NF -Very good biography that concentrates on Jackson's 8 years in the White House and revealed to me that he was at least the 2nd most if not 1st most important president behind Lincoln. A man of many flaws and strenghths, he held this country together thru several crises that could have divided the Union.?What passes for political drama today pales in the reading of Jon Meacham's vividly-told story of our seventh president. The rip-roaring two-fisted man of the people, duelist, passionate lover, gambler and war hero, was also a prime creator of the presidency as the fulcrum of executive power to defend democracy�Meacham argues that Jackson should be in the pantheon with Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln for this and for his role in preserving the Union and rescuing democracy from elitism. He makes the historian's case with wit and scholarship but Meacham also has the novelist's art of enthralling the general reader much as David McCullough did for the lesser figure of John Adams. Reading ?American Lion? one is no longer able to look on the gaunt, craggy face on the $20 bill without hearing the tumult of America in the making.?--Tina Brown?In magnificent prose, enriched by the author's discovery of new research materials, Jon Meacham has written an engrossing and original study of the life of Andrew Jackson. He provides new insights into Jackson's emotional and intellectual character and personality, and describes life in the White House in a unique and compelling way. Scrupulously researched and vividly written, this book is certain to attract a large and diverse reading public.?--Robert V. Remini"Every so often a terrific biography comes along that shines a new light on a familiar figure in American history. So it was with David McCullough and John Adams, so it was with Walter Isaacson and Benjamin Franklin, so it is with Jon Meacham and Andrew Jackson. A master storyteller, Meacham interweaves the lives of Jackson and the members of his inner circle to create a highly original book."--Doris Kearns Goodwin

Informative and readable. I started to glaze over towards the last 75 pages or so but I'm glad I read it. More like 3.5 stars but that isn't an option. Lots of interesting things I didn't know about the seventh US President and what was going on during the 1820's and 30's.
Interesting to learn more about D. Trump's "favorite" President. Jackson was a populist and it's easy to see how Trump somehow patterned himself after Jackson though clearly deluded about the reality of himself and his presidency.
Not too long (about 365 pages without notes etc) timely and worth a look IMHO. ( )

Let's be clear. On balance I liked the book and do recommend reading it. If I didn't I would have put it down before finishing. The book offers a broad panorama of heroes and knaves for much of the early period of American history. It was a gripping page turner.

Why only three stars? It was on the border of being a hagiography. Andrew Jackson was a flawed man and an imperfect president. Some of the black marks are well-known; his blind, unquestioning approval of Negro slavery and his mistreatment of Native Americans. While those who know me know that I am far from an unquestioning progressive, even in his era the dehumanization of downtrodden groups was already an issue. Andrew Jackson had no curiosity or interest. His mad crusade against the Bank of the United States was a large part of the cause of the Panic of 1837. His role rates barely a footnote. In addition, the chaotic management of his White House family rivals that of the current British royals.

The book well highlights Jackson's obvious and positive role in crafting a powerful presidency; one that, in short, led the country. While I give this book a "three", really borderline "four" this book is worth the read; Jackson's place on the currency is well earned. ( )

What a disappointing piece this was. American Lion takes everything wrong with armchair history as if to serve as a textbook example of what not to do. The writing style is captivating and well polished but so infatuated with the subject that the reader gets lost - what I suspect would be a trademark of Meacham as he is not trained as a historian but rather in English.
The chronology is confusing and chapters are spent on days and weeks while entire decades are summed up in a few paragraphs or pages. The reader is given no real sense of the timeline of Jacksons life, the impact that he had upon a broader America, or the actual changes and politics of his time. The story of the Eaton Affair, which rightfully deserves a large portion of the book, dominates along with the handful of scandals and issues of the Jackson presidency, but you get no sense of the true history of the period.
After reading this, you are left with a flashy sense of a few episodes in the life of Jackson, a hell of a lot of quotes from Jackson, his circle, contemporary and twentieth-century historians and commentators, but you get no real idea of what Meacham was adding to the conversation. So much of the book is quotes, I would be afraid of what would be left if we husked them out and left just Meacham. This is a perfect example of the poor history we get from biography and the problem with the popularity of the genre.
Masonry plays no role in the story, at any point. No mention is given to Jackson's Grand Mastership, and only a passage is spent on the Anti-Masonic crisis that gained traction just before Jackson's ascent to the Presidency. This would have made an interesting lens to understand the man, and given fertile grounds to understand the broader historical moment. ( )

Jackson was the first strong/modern president and became a model for Lincoln, Roosevelt, Truman and others. The Margaret Eaton "Petticoat Affair" was quite interesting. Washington has always been a vicious place. The "Trail of Tears" was probably Jackson's low point while his holding the Union together through the Nullification Crisis was his greatest accomplishment.
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As boring as a pile of poop. The Eaton affair almost made me puke.

Stick to your weekly editor, Meacham. ( )

Rather than read another Trump tell-all book, I turned to another populist, Andrew Jackson. In Jon Meacham's telling he's more patrician than vulgarian. There's behind-the-curtain fluff driving the action here too, though, including his loyalty to John Eaton, his secretary of war, and Eaton's wife, who was a bit too frank and flirtatious for Washington in 1829. Jackson's distrust of central power seems equal parts conviction and political grudge, which makes his efforts to drain the swamp appear only somewhat more admirable than Trump's. And his convictions aren't always admirable; Old Hickory battled Native Americans in the War of 1812 and as president wanted them removed as a security threat. Yet he turned back Southern secession, earning the admiration of Lincoln and many presidents that followed. History, like its actors, is complicated.

I enjoyed this book very much and Meacham's approach to the story. I'm surprised so many people criticized it for not being a traditional sequential analysis of his entire life but instead focused on those experiences and issues which the author determined to be most relevant and interesting. ( )

Focused on his time in the white house and the major life events that shaped him leading up to his two terms in office, this book was an unflinching portrait of a not always admirable democrat but a pivotal President. Jackson brought a warriors mindset to the office of the President and fought to keep the union together as the conflict over slavery and states rights flared up. Jackson and his wife Rachel (who died right before he took office) had no children of their own but family and loyalty was very important to him and these relationships, thought sometimes opposed to each other, played an important part in his life as well. Meacham's writing brings the world around Jackson into focus, his toughness, his under appreciated political skills, his rise from Revolutionary War orphan to President of the young United States, a country full of promise but still finding its way. Jackson was a champion of "the people" over the privileged few, while also a slave owner and the architect of the removal of Indians from their land, and his work to keep the union together went a long way to shaping the views of the people who came after him.
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Reading about the electoral college made me want to revisit Andrew Jackson, our 7th President. I actually read this book back in 2010, close to when it came out, but I had just had my first son and was getting no sleep with a newborn. So though this is technically a reread, I remembered almost none of it.

Jackson is a controversial president. He greatly expanded presidential power and viewed himself as a direct representative of the people. He believed this was in contrast to Congress, which until then was viewed as having the most power of the three branches. He used his veto power in a much more expansive way, vetoing bills he didn't agree with whether because of a firm-held belief or simply for a political statement. While in some ways, Jackson felt that because he was the direct representative of the people he should have expanded power as President, in other instances he believed in States' rights. These inconsistencies are a bit hard to understand from a modern point of view.

Three major issues are explored in this book: South Carolina's desire to nullify a federal tariff (a state's rights issue) that could have led to greater state power (and the ability to keep slavery), the removal of the Native Americans from huge swaths of land previously granted to them in treaties, and the break up of the federal bank which dispersed federal money to state banks instead of the centralized federal bank. Jackson is credited with preserving the Union by compromising the tariff in a way that allowed SC to accept it. On the Native American issue, posterity has judged him more and more harshly - rightly so in my mind. And on the bank issue? Well, I'm still a bit confused. He was supposedly combatting corruption and did balance the budget, but the country also entered a depression shortly after this move. I'd need to read more.

Jackson was a President who spoke to the average American and viewed himself as their voice in a Capitol filled with wealthy, out of touch, elitist congressmen. I'm still not sure what I think of him. This biography admits to being less of a scholarly work, and more of a look at broad topics and Jackson's relationships during his Presidency. In this way, I really liked this as an introduction to Jackson. Some day I'll tackle a more scholarly biography that gets into more detail. ( )

This was an impulse buy when I visited Van Buren's home in Kinderhook, New York. They grow and sell the most succulent peaches there. The book though was not as succulent and I finished it on CD. Kudos to the author for making eight years of boredom at least palatable.

Jon Meacham has the ability to instill in the reader a sense that they are present during the events occurring around his subject. As a avid reader of American history, I found this work to be pivotal in telling the story of how the United States transformed from its origins as a revolutionary republic to its modern political culture.
Andrew Jackson was as important a President to this process of transformation as Washington, Jefferson or Lincoln. A truly great read. ( )

This book thoroughly covers Jackson’s life and presidency. The author is well researched and provides a factual account albeit a reverential benediction to Jackson at the end of the book. The discussion of Eaton was tedious at times but evidently was important. I learned a lot and am glad to have read this book. ( )

I thought this book was absolutely fascinating. I would have liked more about Jackson's early life--but that wasn't Meacham's project. I would have organized it differently, I think, in a somewhat more structured way, but I really enjoyed it as it was. Andrew and Emily Donelson, in particular, come to life in this book. And really, if you think modern-day politics are petty and messy and ridiculous, read about the Eaton Affair. ( )

Incredible figure. Loved the book. ( )

American Lion by Jon Meacham (2008)

It's worth putting a bookmark on page xv, the list of principal characters. It was my experience that, as the action shifted back and forth, both in geography and time, I found the names blurring together and confusing me by their similarities.

Meanwhile, it is my recommendation to read "Andrew Jackson (His Life and Times)" by H. W. Brands before reading this book. Brands give an excellent overview of the world in which Andrew Jackson lived, struggled, survived, and excelled. Meacham, on the other hand does a convincing job of analyzing the many reminiscences and anecdotes of and about Jackson to give us a reasonable view of his inner thoughts and sentiments.

I will say that I enjoyed this book and came away much educated about the flaws of our Founding Fathers; and very appreciative of the relative sedateness of our governmental proceedings today…even against the incredible ignobility of our most recent election. Yes, I recommend this book for its entertaining clarification of why Andrew Jackson is celebrated on the $20 bill. And maybe some insight into our current turmoils

Let me admit that I read this book, and the book by H.W. Brand, in order to examine the similarities to our current President and to see what encouragement and comparisons we can draw from history. After all, Jackson was/is a) honored for his martial prowess in the War of 1812 and against the American Indians after that; and vilified for the Trail of Tears and the destruction of the National Bank. He also brought the Party system into the mainstream and was instrumental in instituting many other governmental changes that we now take for granted. How did this man merit his face on our money? How much is he like our current President? And how much different?

I have drawn my own conclusions on these questions, and will leave you to draw your own. However, I want to entice you by presenting several quotations from this book in which, however your partisanship, I expect you will find much that will probably confirm your opinions of the current President, whatever they are.

p39 anger
"...[Jackson's] ambition to succeed was matched by his intellectual capacity to realize that his anger would tend to block, not fuel, his rise…Jackson turned himself into such a man in order to get what he wanted, which was a place among those at the top, not the bottom, of life."

p42 loyal
Meacham describes the kind of people Jackson "loved to have with him: smart, attractive, loyal".

p46 faith of majority
"The force driving Jackson after 1824: a belief in the primacy of the will of the people over the whim of the powerful, with himself as the chief interpreter and enactor of that will…'I have a great confidence in the virtue of a great majority of the people, and I cannot fear the result.' "

p49 calamity
Of the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828, Henry Clay (of Kentucky) remarked to Daniel Webster (of Massachusetts) that it was "mortifying and sickening to the hearts of real lovers of free Government." Clay further thought that "no greater calamity had struck the United States 'since we were a free people' ".

p59-60 vague, inaugural
"When he put his mind and hand to it, Jackson could produce stirring rhetoric—but he did so usually in moments of clarity and purpose…His first inaugural, however, was purposely vague…Better to proceed with care, to be general rather than specific, universal rather than particular—for specificity and particularity would give his foes weapons to use against him. Many leaders would have been seduced by the roar of that crowd, lulled into thinking themselves infallible, or omnipotent, or secure in the love of their followers. But Jackson knew that politics, like emotion, is not static."

p82
Today we accept that the incoming administration would replace the former President's office holders and reward his own followers with jobs …"but Jackson was the first president to remake the federal establishment on such a large scale." The previous 6 Presidents replaced a total of 73 office holders. "…by the time Jackson was done, he had turned out … about 919, just under 10 percent of the government."

p133 discord
"The cost of partisanship for partisanship's sake—of seeing politics as a blood sport, where the kill is the only object of the exercise—was, Livingston (Edward Livingston, Louisiana congressman and friend of Jackson) said, too high a price for a free society to pay. Parties were one thing; partisanship another." Livingston further said that "the spirit of which I speak…creates imaginary and magnifies real causes of complaint; arrogates to itself every virtue—denies every merit to its opponents; secretly entertains the worst designs…mounts the pulpit, and, in the name of a God of mercy and peace, preaches discord and vengeance; invokes the worst scourges of Heaven, war, pestilence and famine, as preferable alternatives to party defeat; blind, vindictive, cruel, remorseless, unprincipled, and at last frantic, it communicates its madness to friends as well as foes; respects nothing, fears nothing."

p158 pride
"In fact, as the arduous wars of Jackson's White House years show, in the end he could rise above his own pride—and he had to do so regularly, since his pride was so often on display—to govern the nation far more wisely, and with more personal warmth for its people, than his opponents ever recognized."

p167 belief not fact
"Politics, as Jackson pointed out, can be largely about belief, not fact …"

p178 odious
"The opposition continued to fear Jackson's mysterious power over so many people. 'His administration is absolutely odious, and yet there is an adherence to the man,' John Sergeant, a former congressman from Pennsylvania, wrote to [Henry] Clay. 'It remains to be seen whether this will not yield to the conviction that his continuance must be destructive of everything that is worthy to be cherished.' "

p185 persecution
"Jackson's vision of direct democracy opened the way to mob rule in which an exercised majority had the power to make bad policy and persecute those who, in the spirit of the Constitution deserved protection."

p187 persecution
In discussing the vindictiveness and ferocity of the verbal war being carried out against Jackson by his enemies—from the attacks on the honor of his dead wife, and of the wife of his most intimate advisor, to the allegations of his incipient tyrannical tendencies—Meacham says that "the controversies drove many away from Jackson's ranks as his foes undertook to persuade voters in the middle to oppose him. Yet the attacks also brought his loyalists together by investing them and their hero with a shared sense of persecution and a strong incentive to defeat those bent on Jackson's destruction…. Bloodthirsty bids for power often provoke equally bloodthirsty reactions—especially when the _target is a man like Jackson, whose own appetite for control and for the elimination of enemies knew few bounds."

p188 power
There were many firsts in Jackson's expansion of presidential prerogatives: the degree of 'favoritism' in bureaucratic appointments, the amount of personal control he manifested over the cabinet and other high level appointments, his control of the army and navy, his destruction of the National Bank, and a long list of others. Jackson felt that no one a) cared as much about the common-man as he did; b) no one was strong enough and capable enough to resist the encroachments upon the rights of the common man as he was; c) no one was as emotionally committed to fighting for the rights of the common man as he was: he thus felt justified in bending the rules and reinterpreting them for his own ends. "…Jackson pressed the known limits of presidential power".

p210 no evils
In his veto of the renewal of the National Bank's charter Jackson said: "There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection…it would be an unqualified blessing."

p212 relief
Jackson was a firm believer in the ability of the average man to recognize the right choices. Meacham says "Jackson believed that 'the intelligence and wisdom of our countrymen' would provide 'relief and deliverance' from the 'difficulties which surround us and the dangers which threaten our institutions'—in every era."

Something that impressed me along these lines, is that the "common" man in the early 1800's was obviously not stupid or abysmally ignorant if he could read and quote and debate the various speeches that were regularly printed in the newspapers of the day. Anyone who could understand and follow the speeches of John Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Martin van Buren, Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson and others is no mental slouch.

p215 despot
Just before the re-election of Jackson in 1832 Henry Clay said, privately, that "he thought Jackson a bullying despot and could not fathom, apparently, why anyone other than the most mindless Jackson partisans might see things differently."

p230 king Andrew
"King Andrew the First, as his foes styled him, was the most powerful president in the forty-year history of the office, but his power was marshaled not for personal gain—he was always in financial straits—but, as Jackson saw it, for what he believed was in the best interests of the ordinary, the unconnected, the uneducated. He could be brutal in his application of power, but he was not a brute. He could be unwavering, but he was not closed-minded."

p276 appeal to the public
"His foes were flummoxed by his insistence on going straight to the nation. After Jackson's remarks to the Cabinet [about the need to destroy the National Bank] were published in the Globe [newspaper] an enraged [John C.] Calhoun virtually sputtered in the Senate. Making the arguments to the Cabinet public, Calhoun said, 'was clearly and manifestly intended as an appeal to the people of the United States, and opens a new and direct organ of communication between the President and them unknown to the Constitution and the laws.' "

In sum, Jackson did make some monumental mistakes in his terms as President—including killing the National Bank (he just did not believe it could be reformed) and the Trail of Tears for which he made no provisions to alleviate the hardships (it just didn't register in his consciousness that the cross-country removal from the land they were promised they could live on forever would be so unbearably arduous; he was just so sure that the Indians would be ultimately slaughtered into extinction if they did not move somewhere far from white settlers that his thoughts stopped there).

But his successes so outshine his failures that we can forgive him much. I did not know that South Carolina was actually raising an army to safeguard their secession from the Union in 1832-33; and that England, France and Spain were ready and eager to step in and help any actions that might weaken the new country and make it more susceptible to outside influence. Remember, we're talking of only the sixth President of a country that was barely 40 years old. Even Abraham Lincoln studied Jackson's writings looking for some help with the turmoil of the 1860's. ( )

President Jackson is especially relevant with President Trump at the helm. Never underestimate the damage the chief of state can do. ( )

I thought this book was absolutely fascinating. I would have liked more about Jackson's early life--but that wasn't Meacham's project. I would have organized it differently, I think, in a somewhat more structured way, but I really enjoyed it as it was. Andrew and Emily Donelson, in particular, come to life in this book. And really, if you think modern-day politics are petty and messy and ridiculous, read about the Eaton Affair. ( )

A good book. Meacham focuses on the presidential years of Andrew Jackson, but necessarily delves into Jackson's whole biography to tell the story. So, as a one-volume biography of his life it is okay, for a more complete rendering see the one-volume condensed version of Remini's, but for a focus on the White House years, this book beats Remini's.

Like Remini, Meacham's Jackson is more than the caricature of frontier bumpkin. Many today hold that view and, fortunately for Jackson, so did many Whigs, like Clay, or enemies, like Calhoun. Jackson was temperamental and untutored, but he could also be gentlemanly and tender, and he was a self-taught man with some education like Abraham Lincoln. He made bold and contentious decisions, but usually never rashly.

Good info on the Bank War, the Eaton affair, the Nullification Crisis, Jackson's attitude toward Indians and slaves, etc. Quite good for the scholar of American history and the casual reader of American history. There is enough here to interest both.

Well-researched and well written, with a good bibliography, but with that stupid page-number-note-system that is unwieldy and asinine. Good images. ( )

I started out loving this, but struggled with it after the first part. I was amazed at all the space given to the "petticoat wars." (But glad to know that this went on even then, even worse than today). I was disappointed in the lack of space given to the Indian removals. Also, Emily Donnelson's life was so short, and how tragic that her husband and uncle could not be at her side when she died. That made me really sad, and helped remind me that the public will take and take and take, but family is most important. Who in their right mind would want to be President? ( )

Driving by the Hermitage on Lebanon Pike or past the various streets named Rachel in Tulip Grove, or driving past Donelson - brought the characters and the story to life for me personally! ( )

Very readable biography of Jackson and his significant impact on the office of the Presidency. ( )

I thought that I'd fall in love with this book but it had the opposite effect on me. I ended up being bored and stopping halfway through. I'm not sure why I didn't like it, and I can't say that I would preach AGAINST the book; I suppose it just didn't do it for me. ( )