America's Jubilee: A Generation Remembers the Revolution After 50 Years of Independence by Andrew Burstein


America's Jubilee: A Generation Remembers the Revolution After 50 Years of Independence
Title : America's Jubilee: A Generation Remembers the Revolution After 50 Years of Independence
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0375709185
ISBN-10 : 9780375709180
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 384
Publication : First published January 1, 2001

In America's Jubilee distinguished historian Andrew Burstein presents an engrossing narrative that takes us back to a pivotal year in American history, 1826, when the reins of democracy were being passed from the last Revolutionary War heroes to a new generation of leaders.

Through brilliant sketches of selected individuals and events, Burstein creates an evocative portrait of the hopes and fears of Americans fifty years after the Revolution. We follow an aged Marquis de Lafayette on his triumphant tour of the country; and learn of the nearly simultaneous deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson on the 4th of July. We meet the ornery President John Quincy Adams, the controversial Secretary of State Henry Clay, and the notorious hot-tempered General Andrew Jackson. We also see the year through the eyes of a minister's wife, a romantic novelist, and even an intrepid wheel of cheese. Insightful and lively, America's Jubilee captures an unforgettable time in the republic’s history, when a generation embraced the legacy of its predecessors and sought to enlarge its role in America’s story.

America's Jubilee: A Generation Remembers the Revolution After 50 Years of Independence Reviews

  • Miles Smith

    This book covered a lot of interesting ground but was wordy and written in a clunky manner to such a degree I nearly lost interest. So much interesting anecdote but the delivery was fair to middling at best; its not a bad book and the notes have useful info on the Early Republic but I came away unimpressed.

  • Kristi

    This is an engaging synthesis focused on the American Jubilee - marking fifty years since the Declaration of Independence - and how celebrated individual lives came to represent the nation. In terms of historical content I did not discover anything remarkably new to me personally, but Burstein's interpretation pushes back the emergence of "Jacksonianism" to the generational shifts of the mid-1820s, before Andrew Jackson's presidency. This is a worth-while read.