Nest Book Club
84Lauren
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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WIJFR: American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
I loved the way this biography was written! Jon Meacham has a great gift for telling a real-life historical story in a way that keeps you turning pages like any novel. Never weighed down by lists of facts, random anecdotes that don't quite have a point, or long, boring descriptions, I found this to be a great read.
I'm starting to edge away from the era that I'm already familiar with in our nation's history, and this really took me to places I haven't been before. I actually feel like I skipped over some things, since this book doesn't start until Andrew Jackson's inauguration to his first term. I was hoping to learn more about his time as a General and the battles that made him a famous war hero of the time, but unfortunately the book (true to its title) just focuses on his time in the White House.
I don't like getting into historical details in reviews, but I will say that I was fascinated by the way Andrew Jackson drew a blind following that basically introduced party politics as we know it. There was always clear "sides" to any debate in our country's history, since long before the first Congress, but it wasn't until Jackson's time in office that legislators clearly picked one side or the other simply because it was (or wasn't) the President's side. There was so much in this book that I see in politics today, and I find it funny how little we've changed. People today are very fond of saying how polarized "we've become" - but while the issues have changed, politics itself doesn't seem all that different than it was in the mid 1800s.
One thing I have to say about this book - it is CLEARLY biased, Jon Meacham was super in love with Andrew Jackson. Everything he does is painted in a pretty rosy light - he even manages to gloss over Jackson's responsibility for the Trail of Tears (that he "honestly meant well") and his stance on slavery (but... he even admits that he thinks black people can go to heaven!) - it does make me wonder how many other things in the book were tidied up that are just not as clear. Still, a great read and definitely a great book to get me back into my groove with the Presidential Challenge!
I'm starting to edge away from the era that I'm already familiar with in our nation's history, and this really took me to places I haven't been before. I actually feel like I skipped over some things, since this book doesn't start until Andrew Jackson's inauguration to his first term. I was hoping to learn more about his time as a General and the battles that made him a famous war hero of the time, but unfortunately the book (true to its title) just focuses on his time in the White House.
I don't like getting into historical details in reviews, but I will say that I was fascinated by the way Andrew Jackson drew a blind following that basically introduced party politics as we know it. There was always clear "sides" to any debate in our country's history, since long before the first Congress, but it wasn't until Jackson's time in office that legislators clearly picked one side or the other simply because it was (or wasn't) the President's side. There was so much in this book that I see in politics today, and I find it funny how little we've changed. People today are very fond of saying how polarized "we've become" - but while the issues have changed, politics itself doesn't seem all that different than it was in the mid 1800s.
One thing I have to say about this book - it is CLEARLY biased, Jon Meacham was super in love with Andrew Jackson. Everything he does is painted in a pretty rosy light - he even manages to gloss over Jackson's responsibility for the Trail of Tears (that he "honestly meant well") and his stance on slavery (but... he even admits that he thinks black people can go to heaven!) - it does make me wonder how many other things in the book were tidied up that are just not as clear. Still, a great read and definitely a great book to get me back into my groove with the Presidential Challenge!
52 Books in 2014??
My sweet babies:
Re: WIJFR: American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House