Other times, Remini tempers his criticism - Jackson was not a racist who hated Indians, he argues, but paternalistic toward them and somewhat manipulative in doing what he thought was best for them, which also happened to be what was best for white settlers. He wasn't the greatest military strategist, for example, he could let his temper get the best of him, and in one of the harshest critiques Remini offers, Jackson could be "high-strung, opinionated and proud" and "readily violated rules and defied superiors when provoked by a prick to his vanity or pride." Remini admires Jackson but doesn't hesitate to criticize him. But despite a sometimes stiffer writing style as compared to more modern works, and some dated language ("red men" appears a lot - used in the context of the times, but still), I found that book #1 holds up fairly well and certainly provides more thorough coverage than any single-volume biography possibly can. Esteemed as it is, I was a little wary about committing to this trilogy on Andrew Jackson written some 40 years ago, considering how Jackson has been recontextualized and often villainized since then.
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