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A review by mattdavenport
Martin Van Buren: The American Presidents Series: The 8th President, 1837-1841 by Ted Widmer
4.0
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.