Rogin shows us a Jackson who saw the Indians as a menace to the new nation and its citizens. This volatile synthesis of liberal egalitarianism and an assault on the American Indians is the source of continuing interest in the sobering and important book.

Fawn M. Brodie has called Fathers and Children "the most brilliant psychoanalytic study of an American president yet published-altogether extraordinary." Michael Paul Rogin's volume is now available in paperback for the fi rst time. Andrew Jackson-valiant defender of New Orleans against the British, stalwart spokesman for the Union against nullifi cation, the common man's champion against special interests-has been considered a great president and a symbol for his age. Now Rogin reveals the dark interior of Jackson's life and career, his hostility toward the American Indian and his responsibility in seeking their destruction. "The architect of his own fortunes," a self-made man subservient to no one, Jackson embodies the triumphant aspects of the popular mythology of the post-Revolutionary era, when the patriarchal order in politics and society was crumbling, freeing people to make their own ways, alone and unfettered.