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27 reviews for:
Martin Van Buren: The American Presidents Series: The 8th President, 1837-1841
Ted Widmer
3.41 AVERAGE
27 reviews for:
Martin Van Buren: The American Presidents Series: The 8th President, 1837-1841
Ted Widmer
3.41 AVERAGE
Working my way through presidential bios. This book was a gift from a friend. The writing was engaging and really focused on the memory and ideas of what made him a forgettable leader. Good writing style.
Good but brief overview. I wish it had been longer. Definitely see other reviewers' point about things being skipped over too broadly. Did a good job of context - everything after Revolution is just a waiting game for Civil War.
informative
medium-paced
After reading lengthy biographies of the first seven presidents, I hit a wall with Van Buren. There are many great biographies of the founding fathers, but the pickings are a little slim after Andrew Jackson. Indeed, I’ll bet some Americans have a tough time even naming the presidents between Jackson and Lincoln. Choices at the library were dated and of an intimidating length, so I chose this selection written by Ted Widmer for the American Presidents Series, which claim to be “compact enough for the busy reader and authoritative enough for the scholar.”
I think Van Buren deserves a contemporary biography to reintroduce him to Americans, as he is a significant figure in American politics. Van Buren was our first ethnic president (that being of Dutch descent and not Anglo-Saxon) and the first American (the prior seven were born as British subjects). He’s also the first president to gain office without a formal education or the benefit of being a military hero. He is one of our first true politicians, quickly absorbing the machinations of politics and governance by observing the visitors in his father’s tavern, located on the path between New York and Albany. By 18 he was already actively involved in politics and campaigning. Van Buren had an innate understanding of building public support and political alliances, and was essentially the architect and builder of the Democratic Party, literally changing the way our government is elected.
Widmer’s writing style is informal in comparison to the academic detail of the typical biography, but it is very readable and not condescending or over-simplified. He does good job highlighting the significant points of Van Buren’s life with just enough detail and thought to keep the reader interested. Ironically, once he achieved the top office Van Buren’s only term was not particularly successful. His story probably peaked with the Jackson presidency, the fruits of all of his hard labor in designing and building the Democratic Party. During his own term, he was the unlucky inheritor of the Panic of 1837, an economic downturn that perhaps no other chief executive could have successfully navigated. His masterful way of holding the middle ground on issues to build public support began to backfire, particularly on slavery, as Americans began to strongly take sides on the issue. Ultimately, he lost his second term to the party politics he mostly invented. All of these significant points are succinctly described by the author.
The page length is restricted in this series, so there are some quantum leaps in Van Buren’s life, and not many little anecdotes and details along the way. Even so, I would recommend this book for those interested in learning about one of our lesser known presidents without getting bogged down in the minutia.
On to Old Tippecanoe.
I think Van Buren deserves a contemporary biography to reintroduce him to Americans, as he is a significant figure in American politics. Van Buren was our first ethnic president (that being of Dutch descent and not Anglo-Saxon) and the first American (the prior seven were born as British subjects). He’s also the first president to gain office without a formal education or the benefit of being a military hero. He is one of our first true politicians, quickly absorbing the machinations of politics and governance by observing the visitors in his father’s tavern, located on the path between New York and Albany. By 18 he was already actively involved in politics and campaigning. Van Buren had an innate understanding of building public support and political alliances, and was essentially the architect and builder of the Democratic Party, literally changing the way our government is elected.
Widmer’s writing style is informal in comparison to the academic detail of the typical biography, but it is very readable and not condescending or over-simplified. He does good job highlighting the significant points of Van Buren’s life with just enough detail and thought to keep the reader interested. Ironically, once he achieved the top office Van Buren’s only term was not particularly successful. His story probably peaked with the Jackson presidency, the fruits of all of his hard labor in designing and building the Democratic Party. During his own term, he was the unlucky inheritor of the Panic of 1837, an economic downturn that perhaps no other chief executive could have successfully navigated. His masterful way of holding the middle ground on issues to build public support began to backfire, particularly on slavery, as Americans began to strongly take sides on the issue. Ultimately, he lost his second term to the party politics he mostly invented. All of these significant points are succinctly described by the author.
The page length is restricted in this series, so there are some quantum leaps in Van Buren’s life, and not many little anecdotes and details along the way. Even so, I would recommend this book for those interested in learning about one of our lesser known presidents without getting bogged down in the minutia.
On to Old Tippecanoe.
After trying and failing to dredge my way through a much more thorough biography of Martin Van Buren, I turned to the American Presidents series to teach me about the Little Magician. I feel as if I'm still processing my actual opinion on him. He was doubtlessly an excellent politician, a shrewd and visionary organizer, and there is much in his world view to be sympathetic to. With that said, his actual Presidency (and his preceding Vice-Presidency for that matter) were categorically bad for the nation in my opinion, and he stands in a crowd of incredibly intelligent, driven politicians in the second political era who utterly failed to stand up to the Slave Power politics of the time.
As for the book itself, this was a wonderfully concise yet still illuminating biography. Widmer captured all the important themes that were much more ponderingly covered in the other biography I read in a tenth of the time. There are certainly areas where I wish there had been more detail, but that is always going to be the case for a book this size. At the end of the day, this was nearly as good of a biography as can be written of such an accomplished human being in so few pages. I would definitely recommend it.
As for the book itself, this was a wonderfully concise yet still illuminating biography. Widmer captured all the important themes that were much more ponderingly covered in the other biography I read in a tenth of the time. There are certainly areas where I wish there had been more detail, but that is always going to be the case for a book this size. At the end of the day, this was nearly as good of a biography as can be written of such an accomplished human being in so few pages. I would definitely recommend it.
informative
fast-paced
An easy, interesting read about about a remarkable man who is one of the most unremarked-upon presidents.
FIRST LINE REVIEW: "In June 1854, a small, elderly man rented rooms overlooking the central plaza of Sorrento, the ancient city jutting into the Mediterranean from a peninsula south of Naples." That's a very long way from the humble beginning Van Buren faced in his childhood and retirement home of Kinderhook, NY. And his journey there was long and fraught with many disappointments. This is a slim biography, but still an insightful one for helping understand one of the "invisible" presidents. It's really pretty depressing, actually, to see how a confluence of unfortunate events can so destructively crush a legacy. Perhaps he deserved better. Hard to know for sure, but this bio raises interesting questions around that point.
It's sort of interesting that there are so few biographies of the man generally responsible (if one man can be) for the birth of the modern American political party. The book is a little too short for the subject. This seems to be a common failing of the "American Presidents" series, although I am still grateful for the series- without it I'm not sure if I would be able to find any modern biography of some of the presidents that sit between Jackson and Lincoln.
Widmer does a good job covering Van Buren's life given the apparent length restrictions of the series, although occasionally he lets a frustrating detail slip, such as "It is impossible to list all the dramatic moments of the 1840 campaign, but it’s clear that the election struck home with the electorate in a way that no previous election had." Really? Impossible?
He also drops a few fun little quips into the text, such as
And the book includes some things that I found quite shocking, such as the fact that his Vice President was married to one of his slaves:
Or this interesting tidbit about Lincoln:
These little diversions keep the book pretty fascinating and made me wish the book were long enough to explore them a little deeper.
Overall a worthy and interesting read.
Widmer does a good job covering Van Buren's life given the apparent length restrictions of the series, although occasionally he lets a frustrating detail slip, such as "It is impossible to list all the dramatic moments of the 1840 campaign, but it’s clear that the election struck home with the electorate in a way that no previous election had." Really? Impossible?
He also drops a few fun little quips into the text, such as
Naturally, these axial roads drew travelers, lawyers, and other miscreants populating the eighteenth-century landscape.
And the book includes some things that I found quite shocking, such as the fact that his Vice President was married to one of his slaves:
He [Vice President Johnson] didn’t care too much for ceremony, or comb his hair, and Harriet Martineau wrote, “If he should become President, he will be as strange-looking a potentate as ever ruled.” But the most striking fact in his personal background, an open secret in Washington, was his unusual domestic arrangement: Johnson was living openly with and was probably married to one of his slaves.
Or this interesting tidbit about Lincoln:
In 1834, he was accused in Mississippi of seeking to emancipate the slaves by act of Congress, and rumors persisted that he was a closet abolitionist. Even Abraham Lincoln would play on these fears in an early debate against Stephen Douglas around 1840, arguing that Van Buren had gone too far to empower black Americans!
These little diversions keep the book pretty fascinating and made me wish the book were long enough to explore them a little deeper.
Overall a worthy and interesting read.