Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union by Robert Vincent Remini ISBN: 0-393-31088-4 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: November, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.73 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: There Should be A 6th Star for This Book!
Comment: Over the past year, I've read biographies of all the presidents from Washington to Polk, plus biographies of other important figures of the revolutionary through the antebellum period and this book is simply the best I've read! Robert Remini is by far the best historian of the period and his writing style should be the model for all students of history. I thoroughly enjoyed his biography of Andrew Jackson and his monograph "Van Buren and the Making of the Demoncratic Party". But this biography of Henry Clay is, to me, his masterpiece! It's more than just a history of Henry Clay's life...it is an encyclopedia of all the major events in American History from 1800 to 1850. Clay was by far the most important figure of the 1st half of the 19th Century. There is not one event or issue that Henry Clay did not affect...either in his opposition to or support for. Remini lays Clay's life bare. All his faults (and there were many!) and all his strengths. Remini's Jackson came off as a very mean spirited and unsympathetic figure. Remini's Clay came off as very mean spirited, but extremely likeable. Remini's reference to Clay as the "Statesman for the Union" is a very fitting moniker.
Rating: 5
Summary: A view into the Age of Jackson through the life of H. Clay
Comment: Remini's book on Henry Clay is an excellent look at American life from the end of the Jeffersonian era into the time of Lincoln. An engaging biography, Remini does an excellent job of weaving straitforward history with anecdotes and personality sketches. As the consummate Jacksonian, Henry Clay's life provides the perfect backdrop for learning about this time period and all of its nuances.
Rating: 4
Summary: "Star of the West"
Comment: The New York Times has called Robert V. Remini "our foremost Jacksonian scholar". No matter how one feels about Remini's scholarship or historical interpretations, he is undeniably the most prolific Jacksonian historian of our time - our any other time, for that matter.
In reading his celebrated three-volume biography of Andrew Jackson and other related works, I'd come to think of Remini as something of a "Jackson bigot." The reverence Remini has for Jackson practically oozes from the pages of his books, while the many injustices and dubious actions undertaken by the seventh president throughout his lifetime are treated as the unfortunate, but excusable episodes of a passionate and often impulsive man (some examples might include: the Treaty of Fort Jackson and other Indian treaties; the unauthorized invasion of Florida in 1818 and his conduct during that campaign; the forced removal of the Cherokees from Georgia; etc.). Indeed, I have often thought that had Remini lived in Jackson's lifetime he may have supplanted Francis Blair as editor of the pro-Jackson newspaper, the Washington Globe. Thus, given such an undisguised admiration for Jackson and his trenchant democratic principles, I was curious to see how Remini would treat his arch-villain: the indomitable Henry Clay of Kentucky.
To my great surprise and pleasure, Remini presents an exceptionally balanced and thorough account of "Prince Hal" and his feud with Andrew Jackson and the Democrats as nominal head of the Whig party. The author pays homage to Clay's tremendous oratorical and political abilities and openly laments the fact that Clay's overweening desire for the presidency ultimately deprived the nation of his services in that office.
Clay's career in national pubic service was long and extraordinarily influential from start to finish. Beginning in 1811, when he was sworn in as a freshman Congressmen, he was immediately elected Speaker of the House owing to his leadership position in a group of young, nationalistic and anti-British Republicans known as the "War Hawks." Remini credits Clay with single handedly changing the fundamental nature of the Speaker's position (which he held for longer than anyone in the 19th century), turning it from that of mundane legislative traffic cop to a leadership role of setting the political agenda and steering national policy. Clay reveled in the rough-and-tumble nature of the House, where his quick wit and speaking abilities were distinct competitive advantages, and openly preferred it to the more rarified and sedate proceedings of the Senate. And when circumstances ultimately brought Clay's talents to the US Senate, he again shaped that body in his own image, ushering in a period of great political debate that is still considered its "golden era."
In the end, Clay failed in his endeavor to shape national domestic policy to include federally funded internal improvements and, much to his chagrin and Remini's, he never had the opportunity to leave his imprint on the executive branch. Nevertheless, as Remini's superb biography makes clear, the legislative branch was Henry Clay's domain, and during his remarkable career in that body (off and on from 1811 to 1852) he did more to refine and redefine the tone, process and importance of Congress than any other American statesman in history.
 |
Title: Daniel Webster: The Man and His Time by Robert Vincent Remini ISBN: 0393045528 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: October, 1997 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
 |
Title: John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union: A Biography (Southern Biography) by John Niven ISBN: 0807118583 Publisher: Louisiana State University Press Pub. Date: July, 1993 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
 |
Title: The Life of Andrew Jackson by Robert V. Remini ISBN: 0060937351 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
 |
Title: Andrew Jackson Vs. Henry Clay: Democracy and Development in Antebellum America (Bedford Series in History and Culture (Paper)) by Harry L. Watson ISBN: 0312112130 Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's Pub. Date: April, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
 |
Title: The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War by Michael F. Holt ISBN: 0195161041 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
