America's Jubilee: How in 1826 a Generation Remembered Fifty Years of Independence

It has become fashionable for historians to select a given year as the focus of their inquiry and to give a portrait of a country or the whole world in that year (see Louis P. Maur's 1831, Forecasts, Dec. 11, and John E. Wills's 1688, Forecasts, Dec. 18). Burstein selects the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence as his moment in this engrossing look at America in transition from fledgling nation to great power. On July 4, 1826, the nation's last surviving founders, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both died. That year, then, was a time of both celebration and mourning for Americans. Burstein (whom readers may remember as a talking head in Ken Burns's documentary on Thomas Jefferson) introduces us to Ethan Allen Brown--the governor of Ohio and an avid proponent of the Erie Canal--who argued that Americans should improve the nation's infrastructure in the interests of connecting disparate people and advancing trade. He then discusses a year in the presidency of John Quincy Adams, who also advocated internal improvements in order to unify the nation, yet who was, Burstein says, a ""failure as president"" both on account of the diminishment in the power of the office after Jefferson and because of his own lack of political skill. The author also looks closely at the man soon to take power, Andrew Jackson, who had loyal friends and bitter enemies, and who spoke fiercely of the need to ""defend the people's liberties."" Although Burstein provides some insight into the lives of ordinary citizens of this time, his book is mostly a stately portrait of American politicians and elites in a year that, as Burstein convincingly argues, was pivotal in the nation's development. (Jan. 23)