The towering figure who remade American politics--the champion of the ordinary citizen and the scourge of entrenched privilege It is rare that historians manage both Wilentz s deep interpretation and lively narrative. - Publishers Weekly The Founding Fathers espoused a republican government but they were distrustful of the common people having designed a constitutional system that would temper popular passions. But as the revolutionary generation passed from the scene in the 1820s a new movement based on the principle of broader democracy gathered force and united behind Andrew Jackson the charismatic general who had defeated the British at New Orleans and who embodied the hopes of ordinary Americans. Raising his voice against the artificial inequalities fostered by birth station monied power and political privilege Jackson brought American politics into a new age. Sean Wilentz one of America s leading historians of the nineteenth century recounts the fiery career of this larger-than-life figure a man whose high ideals were matched in equal measure by his failures and moral blind spots a man who is remembered for the accomplishments of his eight years in office and for the bitter enemies he made. It was in Jackson s time that the great conflicts of American politics--urban versus rural federal versus state free versus slave--crystallized and Jackson was not shy about taking a vigorous stand. It was under Jackson that modern American politics began and his legacy continues to inform our debates to the present day. Author: Sean Wilentz Publisher: Times Books Published: 12/27/2005 Pages: 224 Binding Type: Hardcover Weight: 1.06lbs Size: 9.10h x 6.30w x 1.00d ISBN: 9780805069259 Review Citation(s): Kirkus Reviews 11/01/2005 pg. 1180 Publishers Weekly 10/31/2005 pg. 42 Library Journal 12/01/2005 pg. 142 Booklist 12/15/2005 pg. 16 Choice 10/01/2006 pg. 363 Reference and Research Bk News 11/01/2006 pg. 71 About the Author Sean Wilentz a professor of history at Princeton University is the author or editor of several books including Chants Democratic and The Rise of American Democracy. He has also written for The New York Times the Los Angeles Times The New Republic and other publications. He lives in Princeton New Jersey. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (1917-2007) was the preeminent political historian of our time. For more than half a century he was a cornerstone figure in the intellectual life of the nation and a fixture on the political scene. He won two Pulitzer prizes for The Age of Jackson (1946) and A Thousand Days (1966) and in 1988 received the National Humanities Medal. He published the first volume of his autobiography A Life in the Twentieth Century in 2000.