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American Lion
- Andrew Jackson in the White House
- Narrated by: Richard McGonagle
- Length: 17 hrs and 16 mins
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Publisher's summary
Pulitzer Prize, Biography/Autobiography, 2009
Andrew Jackson, his intimate circle of friends, and his tumultuous times are at the heart of this remarkable book about the man who rose from nothing to create the modern presidency.Beloved and hated, venerated and reviled, Andrew Jackson was an orphan who fought his way to the pinnacle of power, bending the nation to his will in the cause of democracy. Jackson's election in 1828 ushered in a new and lasting era in which the people, not distant elites, were the guiding force in American politics. Democracy made its stand in the Jackson years, and he gave voice to the hopes and the fears of a restless, changing nation facing challenging times at home and threats abroad.
One of our most significant yet dimly recalled presidents, Jackson was a battle-hardened warrior, the founder of the Democratic Party, and the architect of the presidency as we know it. His story is one of violence, sex, courage, and tragedy. With his powerful persona, his evident bravery, and his mystical connection to the people, Jackson moved the White House from the periphery of government to the center of national action, articulating a vision of change that challenged entrenched interests to heed the popular will or face his formidable wrath. The greatest of the presidents who have followed Jackson in the White House have found inspiration in his example, and virtue in his vision.
Jackson was the most contradictory of men. The architect of the removal of Indians from their native lands, he was warmly sentimental and risked everything to give more power to ordinary citizens. He was, in short, a lot like his country: alternately kind and vicious, brilliant and blind; and a man who fought a lifelong war to keep the republic safe, no matter what it took.
Jon Meacham, in American Lion, has delivered the definitive human portrait of a pivotal president who forever changed the American presidency and America itself.
Critic reviews
"American Lion is a spellbinding, brilliant and irresistible journey into the heart of Andrew Jackson and his unforgettable circle of friends and enemies." (Michael Beschloss)
"What passes for political drama today pales in the reading of Jon Meacham's vividly told story of our seventh president....Reading "American Lion" one is no longer able to look on the gaunt, craggy face on the $20 bill without hearing the tumult of America in the making." (Tina Brown)
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The decade of the 1790s has been called the "age of passion". Fervor ran high as rival factions battled over the course of the new republic - each side convinced that the other's goals would betray the legacy of the Revolution so recently fought and so dearly won. All understood as well that what was at stake was not a moment's political advantage, but the future course of the American experiment in democracy. In this epochal debate, no two figures loomed larger than Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.
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Brilliant
- By Laird Williams on 05-10-23
By: John Ferling
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John Quincy Adams
- American Visionary
- By: Fred Kaplan
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 27 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In this fresh and lively biography rich in literary analysis and new historical detail, Fred Kaplan brings into focus the dramatic life of John Quincy Adams - the little known and much misunderstood sixth president of the United States and the first son of John and Abigail Adams - and persuasively demonstrates how Adams's inspiring, progressive vision guided his life and helped shape the course of America.
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Destined by birth, mentored by greats...
- By Jonathan Love on 03-04-16
By: Fred Kaplan
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A Self-Made Man
- The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1849
- By: Sidney Blumenthal
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 21 hrs and 12 mins
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The first of a multivolume history of Lincoln as a political genius - from his obscure beginnings to his presidency, his assassination, and the overthrow of his post-Civil War dreams of Reconstruction. This first volume traces Lincoln from his painful youth, describing himself as "a slave", to his emergence as the man we recognize as Abraham Lincoln.
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I Can't Wait for Volume II!
- By NC-N-NC on 06-14-16
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John Adams
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 29 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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McCullough's John Adams has the sweep and vitality of a great novel. This is history on a grand scale, an audiobook about politics, war, and social issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue, ambition, friendship, and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble ideas. Above all, it is an enthralling, often surprising story of one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.
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An outstanding biography
- By Davis on 07-10-06
By: David McCullough
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James Madison
- By: Richard Brookhiser
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Eminent historian Richard Brookhiser presents a vivid portrait of James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution” and one of America's greatest statesmen.
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OK book but not a biography
- By Joel Mayer on 08-05-12
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For Liberty and Glory
- Washington, Lafayette, and Their Revolutions
- By: James R. Gaines
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
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On April 18, 1775, a riot over the price of flour broke out in the French city of Dijon. That night, across the Atlantic, Paul Revere mounted the fastest horse he could find and kicked it into a gallop. So began what have been called the "sister revolutions" of France and America. In a single, thrilling narrative, this audiobook tells the story of those revolutions and shows just how deeply intertwined they actually were.
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Excellent presentation
- By Hal on 08-20-12
By: James R. Gaines
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The Problem of Democracy
- The Presidents Adams Confront the Cult of Personality
- By: Nancy Isenberg, Andrew Burstein
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 22 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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John and John Quincy Adams: rogue intellectuals, unsparing truth-tellers, too uncensored for their own political good. They held that political participation demanded moral courage. They did not seek popularity (it showed). They lamented the fact that hero worship in America substituted idolatry for results; and they made it clear that they were talking about Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson. When John Adams succeeded George Washington as President, his son had already followed him into public service and was stationed in Europe as a diplomat.
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Very insightful and rewarding adding understanding
- By William on 05-12-19
By: Nancy Isenberg, and others
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Andrew Jackson
- His Life and Times
- By: H.W. Brands
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 25 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The most famous American of his time, Andrew Jackson is a seminal figure in American history. The first "common man" to rise to the presidency, Jackson embodied the spirit and the vision of the emerging American nation; the term "Jacksonian democracy" is embedded in our national lexicon. With the sweep, passion, and attention to detail that made The First American a Pulitzer Prize finalist, historian H.W. Brands shapes a historical narrative that's as fast-paced and compelling as the best fiction.
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Very Thorough
- By Eric on 02-07-06
By: H.W. Brands
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Lincoln's Boys
- John Hay, John Nicolay, and the War for Lincoln's Image
- By: Joshua Zeitz
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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Lincoln's official secretaries, John Hay and John Nicolay, enjoyed more access, witnessed more history, and knew Lincoln better than anyone outside of the president's immediate family. Hay and Nicolay were the gatekeepers of the Lincoln legacy. They read poetry and attendeded the theater with the president, commiserated with him over Union army setbacks, and plotted electoral strategy.
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Best Publicists since Mathew, Mark, Luke, & John
- By James on 04-06-15
By: Joshua Zeitz
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Henry Clay
- The Essential American
- By: David S. Heidler, Jeanne T. Heidler
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 30 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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He was the Great Compromiser, a canny and colorful legislator whose life mirrors the story of America from its founding until the eve of the Civil War. Speaker of the House, senator, secretary of state, five-time presidential candidate, and idol to the young Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay is captured in full at last in this rich and sweeping biography.
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"probably" "possibly" "maybe" "could have"
- By Thor Finn on 08-10-18
By: David S. Heidler, and others
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what you weren't taught in school
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Readable, but more hero worship than history
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In American Gospel (literally meaning the "good news about America"), New York Times best-selling author Jon Meacham sets the record straight on the history of religion in American public life. As Meacham shows, faith, meaning a belief in a higher power, and the sense that we are God's chosen, has always been at the heart of our national experience, from Jamestown to the Constitutional Convention to the Civil Rights Movement to September 11th.
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Franklin and Winston Review
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Drawing on President Bush’s personal diaries, on the diaries of his wife, Barbara, and on extraordinary access to the 41st president and his family, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham paints an intimate and surprising portrait of an intensely private man who led the nation through tumultuous times.
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Fair and insightful
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Large and inconsistent, much like Monroe himself.
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John Adams
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This is a major political biography of a great American president - who won a war, transformed the government, and doubled the size of the United States...in four years. When Polk was sworn in as the 11th president, what followed was one of the most consequential presidencies in history.
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Polk: One of our most important Preidents
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American Lion
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Jon Meacham, in American Lion, has delivered the definitive human portrait of a pivotal president who forever changed the American presidency and America itself. Andrew Jackson, his intimate circle of friends, and his tumultuous times are at the heart of this remarkable book about the man who rose from nothing to create the modern presidency.
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disappointing
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In Washington: A Life celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation. This crisply paced narrative carries the reader through his troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian War, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention, and his magnificent performance as America's first president.
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A sad day when my book was done!
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James Madison
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How do you solve a problem like James Madison? The fourth president is one of the most confounding figures in early American history; his political trajectory seems almost intentionally inconsistent. He was both for and against a strong federal government. He wrote about the dangers of political parties in the Federalist Papers and then helped to found the Republican Party just a few years later. This so-called Madison problem has occupied scholars for ages.
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Good listen
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Mr. Jefferson's Hammer
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Often remembered as the president who died shortly after taking office, William Henry Harrison remains misunderstood by most Americans. Before becoming the ninth president of the United States in 1841, Harrison was instrumental in shaping the early years of westward expansion. Robert M. Owens now explores that era through the lens of Harrison’s career, providing a new synthesis of his role in the political development of Indiana Territory and in shaping Indian policy in the Old Northwest.
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Title = Truth in Advertising
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What listeners say about American Lion
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- John M
- 01-05-09
Unlikable Old Hickory
There have been some truly remarkable presidential biographies written fairly recently (including David McCullough's masterful works John Adams and Truman as well as Goodwin's Team of Rivals) but American Lion suffers in comparison - both in the eloquence of the writing and the subject itself.
The author indicates in his introduction that the book is not intended to be about the "Age of Jackson" but directly about Jackson himself. It is too bad as the changes that happened during Jackson's presidency are incredibly interesting: the election of a "common man" from the West, more popular participation in politics, nullification crisis as a prelude to the Civil War 30 years later, and the evolution of the Office of the President as the most powerful branch of government.
Unfortunately when one gets too close to Jackson himself it is hard to get too excited about the man given the amount of effort Jackson put into the petty social squabbles of the day, battling the central bank at every turn, his general grumpiness, and his unabashed support of slavery (though it is certainly not uncommon at the time).
The biography itself was also a bit hard to follow as it was perhaps too tightly constrained to the Jackson presidential years, but still jumped around chronologically. This meant, for example, we got only a limited mention of Jackson's role in the War of 1812 but pages and pages of the Washington social scene. I also felt there was too much reliance on including text from the vast amount of correspondence between the different parties. Obviously you need some first-hand accounts, but the flow of the narrative suffered.
If you are a dedicated presidential biography reader then this certainly could fill a void in your library, but there are better ones out there. This was the unabridged version - perhaps the abridged version (especially for only one credit!) would be a better bet.
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61 people found this helpful
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Overall
- STEPHEN
- 03-07-09
Horrible!
I don't usually write reviews. I have listened MANY audible biographies. This was one of the worst (stike that-- the worst). It's organization was terrible and it focused on Washington society while ignoring what REALLY made Jackson interesting. RUN AWAY FROM THIS BOOK!
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19 people found this helpful
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- Darwin8u
- 05-21-18
When the time for action has come, stop thinking.
"Jackson was a transformative president in part because he had a transcendent personality"
- Jon Meacham, American Lion
A solid history of a complicated man. One of the more influential Presidents, Jackson can and should be both praised and condemned. In many ways, he epitomized our young nation. Problematic, in the extreme, in regards to Native Americans and slaves, energetic, complicated, narcissistic, driven, and not to be trifled with. Jackson is often revered by Presidents who want to appear both populist and strong. Jackson, however, is no Trump. With obvious blind spots (Slavery and Natives) he typically acted according to an inner guide. He felt our nation needed a stronger executive to protect the people from the tyranny of bureaucracy and moneyed interests. He was brutal to anyone who stood in his way.
Meacham doesn't shy away from Jackson's failings, but also spends a bit too much time (in my opinion) in dealing with Jackson's family. After reading a bunch of Caro, I was afraid I would be severely disappointed with Meacham (like I was with the most recent Walter Isaacson book, Leonardo da Vinci). It was, however, better than I expected.
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18 people found this helpful
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- David I. Williams
- 04-26-13
Excellent book. Brings the Subject Alive
Andrew Jackson is one of the most important and one of the most controversial presidents in American History. During his lifetime the United States came into being and gained large new tracts of territory. Much of that territory was rough and wild, as were the people who lived there. Andrew Jackson became a lawyer and judge in Tennessee. He met and married his beloved Rachel. Their relationship was controversial at the time because they were married before her divorce from her prior husband had come through. For the rest of their lives allegations of Rachel's character would haunt them. At least one man was killed by Jackson in a duel over this. As a military leader Jackson twice invaded Spanish Florida chasing Creek raiders who raided into George and Alabama and escaped to Florida. As a military commander he is most known as the US commander at the Battle of New Orleans. At that battle a ragtag group of regular soldiers, militia, volunteers, Choctaw warriors, and Baratarian pirates defeated a large British army.
The book covers these issues, but it is focused on his two terms as president. Jackson won a contentious election. Over the next eight years he would confront many controversies. He sought to bring more prestige and power to the office of the President. An opposition party would form to battle his policies. They called themselves Whigs after the British party that opposed royal authority. Jackson despised the idea of a National Bank and did everything he could to not only block the re-chartering of the Bank, but to bring it down ahead of it's time. When the South Carolina legislature claimed it had the authority to nullify a federal law Jackson was ready to invade the state to assert Federal authority. In fact Lincoln would cite Jackson's example in the early days of his administration. The act that would be remembered the most in future generations was the Indian Removal Act. This act forced native people to sell their land (often at cut rate prices) and move west of the Mississippi. The mostly ended up in Oklahoma. The suffering encountered by these people would be remembered as the Trail of Tears.
Meacham paints a fascinating portrait of this complicated man. You may or may not like Jackson after you read this book, but you will have a better understanding of this important man. Perhaps like every other person in history we should learn how to admire the good things that a man does while disapproving of the bad. This is a great book and is well worth reading.
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- Kevin Elliott
- 08-05-19
Disappointing as political history
I was very disappointed in this book. I can't believe it won the Pulitzer.
Coverage of his early career was terrible. Elections are things that just happen in a sentence or two, no explanation of the forces shaping the outcome, no characterization of other, opposing figures.
The whole book was shockingly one sided. We hear from time to time what others said about Jackson, but not who these critics are, nor whether their criticisms are ever on point.
Take Indian removal, for instance. We hear a lot about Jackson's genuine belief that it was necessary for American security, but nothing at all about...whether there were grounds for that view. Moreover, Jackson comes in for almost no criticism for the hypocrisy of reportedly viewing the Indians as his 'red children' and yet endorsing wholesale breaking of faith with them through unilaterally abrogating treaties.
I'm not saying the only way to discuss Jackson is critically. Just that it's bad history to cover his subject this way. I wasn't expecting what ultimately comes to hagiography from a Pulitzer winning book, but here we are.
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- Suzanne
- 01-22-09
American Lion
Informative about our seventh President. It could have used more editing--dragged in some places.
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9 people found this helpful
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- PMDobie
- 04-28-17
Narration so obnoxious I could not focus on book!
What would have made American Lion better?
A different narrator. I could not finish this book because the narration is so obnoxious. If anyone ever remembers William Shatner lampooning himself as the Captain Kirk character, McGonagle's narration is worse. Almost Every Other Word is spoken with EMphasis on one SYLlable or the Other (place over-emphasis where I've capitalized and you'll get it). McGonagle has a great voice and if his narration was conversant rather than theatrical, I would probably enjoy listening to him.
Would you be willing to try another one of Richard McGonagle’s performances?
Never!
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- Peter Riley
- 09-05-18
Excellent
Meacham does not write with the voluminous depth of Ron Chernow but this books are always satisfying in their scope and scholarship. Jackson was such a fascinating individual and an important President that I can very much recommend this volume.
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- Kindle Customer
- 01-31-12
Interesting, but depressing
This book sounds like it was written by a gossip columnist. I realize it was written by a fine historian, but in dealing with Andrew Jackson, he didn't have much other material to work with.
When Jackson became President, the era of the Founding Fathers was over, and our modern political system was born. If this had been its purpose, the book could have been much shorter - and for me, more interesting.
Jackson, to use his words, was a man of the people - of the political mass, which he identified with completely. The American frontiersmen were just that - crude and greedy - as they made clear by their treatment of the Indians.
This could probably be made into a movie, with the most salacious parts emphasized. The jealousies of the women would provide some interesting character studies, much like a soap opera - which it resembles.
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- Douglas
- 02-18-17
The Trump Of His Time...
Loud-mouthed, pistol-wielding and brash, this anti-establishment president sought to make America great again after the debacle of John Quincy Adams' single term. Much hated--or loved, his wife unfairly maligned, and his own moral character questioned, he reconnected the presidency to the people while asserting his own executive powers freely in order to realize the will of the people. A book for our times.
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3 people found this helpful