Andrew Jackson, SouthernerMark R.Cheathem. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2013.

Abstract

Andrew Southerner Mark R. Cheathem. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2013.Two centuries later, Andrew Jackson remains one of the most controversial of all American historical figures. His life, stretching from 1767 to 1845, was covered in detail after his death in biographies such as The Life of Andrew Jackson (1911), The Reign of Andrew Jackson: Chronicle of the Frontier in Politics (1914), and Andrew Jackson: Symbol of an Age (1955). More recently, texts such as Andrew Jackson and FI is Tennessee Lieutenants: Study in Political Culture (1997), The Passions of Andrew Jackson (2003), and American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House (2008) have looked back on the President through more critical contemporary perspectives. As recent as 2014, James Fester released a history lesson on the popular TED-Ed site titled History v. Andrew Jackson, in which he begins A national hero? Or public enemy number one? Historical figures were often controversial, but few were as deified or vilified in their lifetime as the seventh President of the United States. Thus, one may be forgiven for thinking there is little left to say about Jackson. Mark R. Cheathem's Andrew Southerner (2013), however, provides a fresh take on this polarizing figure, centering his examination on the notion of the southerner to better understand the symbolic implications of many of Jackson's personal and political decisions.In 2007, Cheathem, now an associate professor of history at Cumberland University in Tennessee, published Old Hickory's Nephew: The Political and Private Struggles of Andrew Jackson Donelson under the same Southern Biography series at Louisiana State University. In it, he argued that this overlooked political figure (Jackson's nephew) played an important role in the southern political, journalistic, and diplomatic fields during the nineteenth century. With his new work, Cheathem takes on the history of Jackson himself, showing the President's personal struggle to construct a personal reputation and professional career within the mores of nineteenth-century ideals of masculinity and honor in the south.Jackson's heroism as a self-made frontiersman, who fought off violent natives and helped expand the country westward, as well as his vilification for brawling and gambling with disreputable characters and displacing countless African slaves and Native Americans during his presidency, has been well documented. …