Opal's Jackson is an extremely simple man who at times could be quite complex ... He was, in a few words, uncompromising, self-sufficient, unforgiving, determined, and a towering, heroic figure in American history. In example after example, Opal has fleshed out all these character traits, in what is an extremely well-argued and well-written contribution that all students of presidents and ... Read morehistory will appreciate.
Gary Clayton Anderson, American Historical Review
Deeply researched, skillfully argued, and written with an eye for irony, J. M. Opal's book is necessary reading for anyone wishing to understand how American exceptionalism so often turns out so mean.
John Mayfield, Register of the Kentucky Historical Society
Opal does an excellent job of presenting Jackson as someone who used the law to seek justice for his view of American identity....Works such as Opal's are important to continue to probe who Andrew Jackson was and what he meant, and means, to the American people.
Mark R. Cheathem, The Historian
In Avenging the People, Jason Opal develops a novel approach to the Jacksonian age....[The book] adds to the larger portrait Opal has built of the social, intellectual and cultural terrain of colonial and Revolutionary America.Instead of a traditional biography or political history of Jackson's presidency, the book offers a history of Jacksonian ideology that places vengeance at the heart of the national project he embodied....The importance of the book rests not only in the originality of the subject but also in the new light it sheds on Jackson's life.
Quentin Janel, Revue d'histoire du XIXXe siècle
"The story of the bloody decades following the Revolution and the early development of the [Old Southwest] region is told graphically, succinctly, and with unusual and rewarding insight."
Donald Ratcliffe, Journal of Southern History Show Less