scholars than the 1829-1837 Presidency of Andrew Jackson. The craggy Tennessee general was the first man out- side the colonial gentry to reach the White House. His life was tumultuous. (How many Chief Executives had once fought duels and even killed a man?) But so were his times. Modern political parties, corporations, and a vigorous press all emerged, as did something called Jacksonian Democracy. Yet what was that ex- actly? During the 1920s, historian Carl Russell Fish christened the era the...