A timely, solidly researched and gracefully written (The Wall Street Journal) biography of President Andrew Jackson that offers a fresh reexamination of this charismatic figure in the context of American populism connecting the complex man and the politician to a longer history of division, dissent, and partisanship that has come to define our current times. Andrew Jackson rose from rural poverty in the Carolinas to become the dominant figure in American politics between Jefferson and Lincoln. His reputation, however, defies easy description. Some regard him as the symbol of a powerful democratic movement that saw early 19th-century voting rights expanded for property less white men. Others stress Jackson's prominent role in removing Native American peoples from their ancestral lands, which then became the center of a thriving southern cotton kingdom worked by more than a million enslaved people. A combative, self-defined champion of farmers, mechanics, and laborers, Jackson railed against East Coast elites and Virginia aristocracy, fostering a brand of democracy that struck a chord with the common man and helped catapult him into the presidency. The General, as he was known, was the first president to be born of humble origins, first orphan, and thus far the only former prisoner of war to occupy the office. Drawing on a wide range of sources, The First Populist takes a fresh.