Jackson's way : Andrew Jackson and the people of the western waters

Praise for Jackson's Way

""A compelling account of Jackson's Indian-fighting days . . . as well a grand sweep of the conquest of the trans-Appalachian West, a more complex, bloody, and intrigue-filled episode than is generally appreciated. . . . Mr. Buchanan writes with style and insight. . . . This is history at its best.""
-The Wall Street Journal

""An excellent study . . . of an area and a time period too long neglected by historians . . . provides valuable new information, particularly on the Indians.""
-Robert Remini, author of Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars

""John Buchanan has written a book that explodes with action and drama on virtually every page. Yet the complex story of the birth of the American West never loses its focus-Andrew Jackson's improbable rise to fame and power. This is an American saga, brilliantly told by a master of historical narrative.""
-Thomas Fleming, author of Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Future of America

From John Buchanan, the highly acclaimed author of The Road to Guilford Courthouse, comes a compulsively readable account that begins in 1780 amidst the maelstrom of revolution and continues throughout the three tumultuous decades that would decide the future course of this nation. Jackson's Way artfully reconstructs the era and the region that made Andrew Jackson's reputation as ""Old Hickory,"" a man who was so beloved that men voted for him fifteen years after his death. Buchanan resurrects the remarkable man behind the legend, bringing to life the thrilling details of frontier warfare and of Jackson's exploits as an Indian fighter-and reassessing the vilification that has since been heaped on him because of his Indian policy. Culminating with Jackson's defeat of the British at New Orleans-the stunning victory that made him a national hero-this gripping narrative shows us how a people's obsession with land and opportunity and their charismatic leader's quest for an empire produced what would become the United States of America that we know today.

出版社周刊评论

With tremendous admiration, even reverence, for his subject, Buchanan (The Road to Guilford Courthouse) recounts Andrew Jackson's early career and rise to American war hero. He focuses on the westward expansion from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River, which he describes as a "folk movement" or mass migration of rough, often lawless people determined to lay claim to a new land and to fight until they prevailed. With graphic first-person accounts of Indian massacres and the retaliatory strikes of settlers, the author provides a very detailed military history of Jackson's defeat of the Chicamunga Cherokees and the Creek tribes who claimed sovereignty, until 1814, over the southeastern United States, and of his victory at the battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. Buchanan uses quotations from primary sources so well that they blend almost seamlessly with his own writing, which can sound oddly archaic and overwrought to modern ears (soldiers are "released by death"; British ships bound "eaglelike over the waves"). In Buchanan's eyes, Jackson is nothing short of "superhuman," and there is little balance in his treatment of Jackson's controversial views on Indians (the future president eschewed the idea of Indian sovereignty, although Buchanan argues that it was the English, and not the Indians, whom Jackson hated) or his invasion of Florida, a possession of neutral Spain, at the close of the Creek Indian war. Buchanan is unabashedly nostalgic for the days when battlefields were "fields of honor" and the ungoverned individualism and hunger for expansion of the frontier was at the forefront of the American experience. This account will appeal mainly to those who enjoy military history. Illus. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Kirkus评论

A level, intelligent, and thoroughly readable biography of Old Hickory, from historian Buchanan ( The Road to Guilford Courthouse , not reviewed). Though no revisionist, Buchanan does try to put Jacksons Indian fighting days into perspective in this ranging history of his life through the War of 1812. He suggests that Jacksons hardscrabble youth (he was reared in the crude, violent backcountry of South Carolina) burned far more hatred in him of the Britishwho had killed his mother, brothers, and nearly himselfthan of the Indians. The author charts his course from young Jackson reading law in North Carolina, through his days as public prosecutor and then understudy to Governor William Blount, through to his command of troops during the Creek Campaign of the War of 1812. The lands that would become Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Floridaoriginally known as the Old Southwesthung in the balance: Spain, Britain, and France had toeholds and designs here, and it was their presence (rather than bloodlust) that spurred Jackson on. He himself hardly denied that the fighting was godawful: The carnage was dreadful, he said of the battle at Horseshoe Bend. And Buchanan doesnt play down Jacksons frequent scorched-earth policy, but rather places it within the parameters of national acquisition. The real strength of this study, however, lies in its thoroughgoing history of colonial-native relations, good and bad, and the quick sketches of the important figures in the bloody conquest of the Old Southwest. Buchanan also does a fine job of explaining the political context of the final battle for Florida, which became a crucial element of Jackson's reputation. An appealing popular history that is happy to follow various byways to flesh out its portrait of the seventh presidents early years: most readers should be happy to tag along. (17 illustrations, 4 maps)

《书目》(Booklist)书评

Not strictly a biography of Jackson, this work rather personifies in Jackson the southern version of the saga of settler expansion and frontier warfare that culminated in the massacre-soaked Creek War of 1813^-1814. Buchanan prefaces Jackson's role with a chronicle of the flow into what is now Tennessee and Kentucky of land-hungry whites prior to the Revolution. The young Jackson sluiced over the mountains in 1787, his angry personality already formed from a penurious childhood and a hatred for the British. Buchanan, better at exposition than style, conveys Jackson's fortunes in the rough-and-tumble of raw Tennessee society, where perceived slights would dissolve into duels and ganglike violence: Jackson himself was shot in one duel and again in a street brawl. Jackson's personal story and the victory of the settlers merged in Jackson's ruthless campaign to crush the Creeks forever, followed by his victory over the British at New Orleans in 1815. The thickness of detail may not be to every reader's taste, but overall Buchanan is a capable chronicler of events. Gilbert Taylor

Choice 评论

Buchanan emphasizes Andrew Jackson's pivotal role in the long and successful struggle of Americans to dominate the Old Southwest, a region stretching from the Appalachians to the Mississippi and from the Ohio River to the Gulf of Mexico. Several tribes bitterly resisted the American invasion. But "Like Arabs and Vikings and Mongols and Aztecs before them, frontier Americans were conquerors, and they had the conqueror's self-confidence that their cause was just." Seeking land and opportunity, the invaders suffered and killed in their determination to achieve their goals. An ambitious and courageous leader, Jackson played a varied and critical role in the Old Southwest. In Tennessee he acquired land and won various political offices. Buchanan analyzes Jackson's relationship with his wife, with Aaron Burr, and politicians. Many of his contemporaries recognized "that Jackson was not an ordinary man, that within him was a capacity to perform extraordinary deeds." Because of Jackson's resounding defeat of the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend, Buchanan calls Jackson "the greatest Indian-fighter of all." Buchanan relates the Indian's viewpoint but is more sympathetic with the invaders than most contemporary historians. This lively, analytical history, which explains why Jackson came to political power, deserves a wide readership. G. T. Edwards emeritus, Whitman College

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《书目》(Booklist)书评

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