The Rise of Andrew Jackson
Myth, Manipulation, and the Making of Modern Politics
-
-
4.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $19.99
-
- $19.99
Publisher Description
The story of Andrew Jackson's improbable ascent to the White House, centered on the handlers and propagandists who made it possible
Andrew Jackson was volatile and prone to violence, and well into his forties his sole claim on the public's affections derived from his victory in a thirty-minute battle at New Orleans in early 1815. Yet those in his immediate circle believed he was a great man who should be president of the United States.
Jackson's election in 1828 is usually viewed as a result of the expansion of democracy. Historians David and Jeanne Heidler argue that he actually owed his victory to his closest supporters, who wrote hagiographies of him, founded newspapers to savage his enemies, and built a political network that was always on message. In transforming a difficult man into a paragon of republican virtue, the Jacksonites exploded the old order and created a mode of electioneering that has been mimicked ever since.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This substantive book by the historian Heidler spouses (Washington's Circle: The Creation of the President) 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. As the Heidlers show, it was stage-managed by a number of "managers and handlers" who saw in the hero of the Battle of New Orleans a man who would advance their plans for a national government that was very different in ideology and practice than its predecessors. They are particularly skilled in exploring, in nuance and detail, how a disparate group of politicians, journalists, and fixers created the popularity of a man who had "a nasty temper, a violent streak, and a past littered with appalling lapses in judgement," setting the template for the modern political campaign of image-building and manipulation of public opinion. This lively and insightful read teaches the reader nearly as much about today's politics as it does about those of the 1820s.)
