It's Monday, What are You Reading? Driven West by A.J. Langguth

It's Monday, What are You Reading? 

Driven West by A.J. Langguth

This is the twentieth entry for this meme, suggested by Sheila@ One Persons Journey Through A World of Books.

I have generally avoided the Jacksonian era, but am now tippy-toeing into it. I've been working on Team of Rivals on the Civil War and the last book noted here on President Polk. "Driven West" is a bit of a 'gap filler' and also has implications here in Souther Missouri because the "Trail of Tears" passed by here.

From Booklist on Amazon:

Excluding the most die-hard southern apologists, there is a consensus among historians that the original sin of slavery lay at the root of the sectional strife that developed into the Civil War. Within that consensus, however, there remains considerable debate. Why, for example, did the strife break out into a full-blown civil war, and why did it break out when it did? Langguth asserts that the uprooting of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes under the Jackson administration set in motion a train of events that led to the Mexican War. To illustrate his argument, Langguth traces four decades of American history between the end of the War of 1812 and the end of the Mexican War. He does so primarily by providing examinations of the personalities and actions of key players in those decades, including Henry Clay, John Calhoun, John Quincy Adams, and Cherokee leaders Major Ridge and John Ross. Langguth may not prove a direct line of causation to the Civil War, but he writes well and provides interesting insights into the actions of these men. --Jay Freeman

 

Happy Reading!

Bill  ;-)