Andrew Jackson and the Search for Vindication is a biography written by James C. Curtis. James C. Curtis traveled to Tennessee and worked with the Tennessee state Library and the Andrew Jackson Papers Project to locate unpublished correspondence of Jackson’s. Curtis went to great lengths in his research to try and be as accurate as possible when writing this book. The book covers Jackson’s childhood, in small detail, his military life and presidency. What James Curtis, like other authors, was trying to accomplish was to interpret Andrew Jackson's life and career in a new light. Curtis tries to show that Jackson was always searching for personal vindication. The book goes into great detail of how Jackson would deal with these feelings. …show more content…
At some points in the book the reader cannot be sure what period in history the story is at. Is the reader reading about 1818 or 1812? It makes for a hard read, and hard to keep track of where the reader is within the story of Andrew Jackson’s life. Curtis, at least to this critic, fails to fully tell the story of Andrew Jackson’s childhood. Curtis states Jackson was a mischievous as a child, yet fails to explore that to the fullest. The story jumps from this comment and idea to Jackson’s education and the local school …show more content…
For instance in Chapter 6, Jackson’s motive for not liking banks seemed more because of his, and his adoptive son’s, financial instabilities as well as a difference of opinion between Jackson and the bank. Throughout the book, Curtis makes it clear that Jackson doesn’t agree with the anyone that causes him problems, and in this instance Jackson’s personal money problems cause him to not see eye to eye with the bank and try to open his own kind of bank instead of bailing out what he felt was a failing industry. No vindication is shown by Curtis in this instance, only Jackson’s personal problems causing him to retaliate against the bank, the senate, house members, and even members of his own cabinet for not having the same