"Andrew Jackson is one of the most critical and controversial figures in American history. A dominant actor on the American scene in the period between the Revolution and Civil War, he stamped his name first on a mass political movement and then an era. At the same time Jackson's ascendancy accelerated the dispossession and death of Native Americans and spurred the expansion of slavery. 'The Papers of Andrew Jackson' is a project to collect and publish Jackson's entire extant literary record. The project is now producing a series of seventeen volumes that will bring Jackson's most important papers to the public in easily readable form."--

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author of The First American comes the first major single-volume biography in a decade of the president who defined American democracy • "A big, rich biography.” —The Boston Globe H. W. Brands reshapes our understanding of this fascinating man, and of the Age of Democracy that he ushered in. An orphan at a young age and without formal education or the family lineage of the Founding Fathers, Jackson showed that the presidency was not the exclusive province of the wealthy and the well-born but could truly be held by a man of the people. On a majestic, sweeping scale Brands re-creates Jackson’s rise from his hardscrabble roots to his days as frontier lawyer, then on to his heroic victory in the Battle of New Orleans, and finally to the White House. Capturing Jackson’s outsized life and deep impact on American history, Brands also explores his controversial actions, from his unapologetic expansionism to the disgraceful Trail of Tears. Look for H.W. Brands's other biographies: THE FIRST AMERICAN (Benjamin Franklin), THE MAN WHO SAVED THE UNION (Ulysses S. Grant), TRAITOR TO HIS CLASS (Franklin Roosevelt) and REAGAN.