New project

Got a new writing project but I'm not sure it will last. I did it for my sanity.

Watching the president put a wrecking ball to the government, I decided to delve into history and write a book about Andrew Jackson. The project would ultimately be to write about all 45 (two served two separated terms), but I'd start with Jackson because I knew the most about him, and because it would help divert me from the day-to-day anguish of the wrecking ball.

It turns out that there have been a few comparisons out there. But Jackson is not anything like the current president. For one, he was a man of the people, he cared about the common man. Also, he was a soldier and general, and fought in many battles. Finally, he was a gentleman, no talk about assaults and rapes.

He did however fill his cabinet up with his friends, and launch attacks on his enemies. He had a war with the Bank which he considered the enemy of the people. He believed in expanding the territory and went about aggressively making that possible. He was responsible for the Trail of Tears and numerous other savage assaults on North America's indigenous tribes.

Reading about his shenanigans in DC is a little comforting; in other words, delving into history had the desired effect of getting my mind off the travesty of the daily news. I'm not sure I can keep it up, though. I think I can tell a good story, and that alone may be worth the trouble I just took of getting all these books out of the library and starting to read them.

The librarian, by the way, was impressed by this old duffer coming along with a stack of five Jackson books, every one the library had available. The college library up the street has a half-dozen more which I would have to read there. But I have found over thirty-five biographies of him out there, some available online, some spanning back to 1915 and such. Very few of these were available when I studied Jackson in 1984 or so in a historiography class taught by a professor who I very much would like to credit, William Heywood. At the time we studied Jackson from every angle in an attempt to get a historical view, a many-dimensioned view of a very polarizing guy. This is the feeling I seek, to be able to back off and look at it from the big picture.

The other part of it is watching a democracy in action, a democracy that is clearly now in danger. We had three separate parts of our government and we did that intentionally. It was good, and it worked for a couple hundred years. One can argue that it has come to a screeching halt. I would argue that we'll have to fight as hard as Jackson fought, to get it back again.

I'm 71, so my first problem is actually reading all 30 of these biographies; I'm not sure I can. Also not sure I want to spend the next five or six years studying old powerful white men and the damage they did (with a possible break for Obama, or for something that is not presidential history). My overall plan would be to write a continuous history of the US whose high points would be 1) effectively, if briefly, expressing other points of view and showing how to access them; 2) surveying the work, academic and otherwise, that has been done on these guys, 3) having enough background so that people can experience the growth of the US and its changes over time. Am I that attached to the nation and its democracy itself? If so I'll be in deep pain for the next four or more years as we watch the rise of a country wrenched free of its stable status as leader of the free world. I find that, after I check the news in the morning, I not only like but also need to check in with the 1830s if only to regain my own moorings. So if my own sanity is the only survivor of this episode it will still be worth it.

It's quite a story and one I expect to rewrite a few times before I have it how I want it. Therefore I can't argue that it should be on the top shelf along with the Schlesinger series or Meacham's American Lion which I've started already. One guy, Remini, appears to have made an entire career writing about Jackson, with over a helf-dozen books, one about his soldiering alone. How can I read all these? Also, I feel some sense of obligation, both to my former professor and to the man himself, to get as much of the story as possible, and get it as right as possible. All people are complex and have complex reasons for doing what they do. We have to know what we're talking about here and the question is, can I, or do I want to, spend the next four or five years doing that? I may be ok here for a few months since I really like the 1820s and 30s but may find the larger project overwhelming after a while.

People like Washington and Lincoln have fifty or more biographies. For me to write a quick 200-page one would make me a much shallower writer and historian than most of the other 49. In some cases, and these are the ones I'm actually more attracted to, there are very few biographies out there and mine would become one of maybe two or three. Interesting! Maybe I'll start with those, after I do Jackson, or, if I finish Jackson. Maybe I'll just read about him and skip it.