Life of Andrew Jackson

"Parton was the great American biographer of the 19th century, and Jackson was his first important biography. President Jackson was the most popular figure of the 19th century. He was even more popular than Abraham Lincoln , who was beloved in the North and hated in the South. Jackson was the successor to George Washington in the eyes of three generations of Americans. Understanding the era of Jackson is absolutely essential to understanding what it meant for America to become a democratic nation. Parton’s is one of the first biographies that combined scholarly research and the journalist’s technique of interviewing. Parton wrote so close to Jackson’s lifetime that he was able to talk to people—he was able to refute and confirm the myths about the man. He was able to supplement the written record with what remained of the oral record. Those who have written about Jackson from a far greater remove have to envy that opportunity. One of the hardest things for a historian to do is to get a sense of the physical presence of their subjects, and the kind of impact they had on the people around them. Parton was able to capture all that, because he was roughly of the same era as Jackson. Unfortunately, these days Parton is forgotten. Although he wrote several wonderful biographies, few people have ever heard of him. Many perceive history as a cumulative venture. We know more about Jackson, for example, than Parton did, because we learn from his work, and the work of everyone who has written about Jackson since. When it comes to nonfiction, many think: The newer the better. I don’t think that’s true. We can forget as much as we accumulate. Works of nonfiction almost always have a short shelf life. No one reads Parton anymore, but everyone still reads Tolstoy. Works of fiction can last forever because they’re thought to be works of an individual imagination, whereas works of nonfiction labour under the misapprehension that they merely encapsulate facts."