Andrew Jackson’s belief in union kept secessionists at bay for a generation, but his actions toward Native Americans were “an evil which must forever stain his memory.” Jackson was the least educated of American presidents, a hell-raising, gambling man from Tennessee who became a successful lawyer, a heroic general and the first popularly elected president of the US. His era became the Age of Jackson, and his ideas on slavery, Native Americans, and the power of the presidency defined the times. The lively narrative is unusually frank in its portrayal of Jackson’s destructive beliefs and actions. Maps and black-and-white photographs of archival materials add relief to the dense narrative that begins in Scotland in 1297 in the days of William Wallace. The extensive bibliography of the author’s sources contains no guide to sources for young readers. (notes, additional reading, index) (Nonfiction. 12+)
