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Other sections can get a little plodding, such as a detailed description of the creation of the Tennessee territorial government, and Jackson's brief tenure as Florida governor. On the question of whether Jackson's wife was divorced before she and Jackson married - and whether or not they knew of her marital status when they went ahead and got married anyway - Remini weighs all of the evidence and provides very thorough coverage. Events like Jackson's imprisonment during the Revolutionary War, which are briefly described in other biographies, are covered here very thoroughly, as are his infamous duel, the Creek War and the Battle of New Orleans.

There is not, meanwhile, a whole lot of analysis about Jackson's attitudes toward slavery - he is just matter-of-factly described as a slaveowner and a product of his time and place.įor the most part, though, Remini steers clear of psychoanalysis and passing judgment, and describes events as they happen, at the detailed and leisurely pace that a three-part series allows. Other times, Remini tempers his criticism - Jackson was not a racist who hated Indians, he argues, but paternalistic toward them and somewhat manipulative in doing what he thought was best for them, which also happened to be what was best for white settlers. He wasn't the greatest military strategist, for example, he could let his temper get the best of him, and in one of the harshest critiques Remini offers, Jackson could be "high-strung, opinionated and proud" and "readily violated rules and defied superiors when provoked by a prick to his vanity or pride."

Remini admires Jackson but doesn't hesitate to criticize him. But despite a sometimes stiffer writing style as compared to more modern works, and some dated language ("red men" appears a lot - used in the context of the times, but still), I found that book #1 holds up fairly well and certainly provides more thorough coverage than any single-volume biography possibly can.

Esteemed as it is, I was a little wary about committing to this trilogy on Andrew Jackson written some 40 years ago, considering how Jackson has been recontextualized and often villainized since then.