The title of the book is very accurate, this is not a biography of President Jackson, but rather, a review of the era that bears his name. The banking war takes up the majority of the book and is an incredibly interesting fight to read about. The fights between business and worker, and the split of the political parties in the lead up to the civil war were less substantive but equally gripping.

Unfortunately, there was absolutely no mention of the trail of tears or anything at all about the Native American experience during the era, which makes me wonder if other events are selectively chosen to not appear because of Schlesinger’s positive opinion of the Jacksonian era.

All in all though, what was covered was very compelling, if likely biased, reading. The Jacksonian and Jeffersonian eras likely have a lot to teach us about our own, but, undoubtedly, we won’t know enough to benefit from the past, we’ll just pick out pithy quotes and use them for our own purposes, no matter their original intent.