Young Hickory: The Making of Andrew Jackson.

By Hendrik Booraem.(Dallas, Tex.: Taylor Trade Publishing, c. 2001. Pp. [xviii], 318. $26.95, ISBN 0-87833-263-4.)

Hendrik Booraem delivers what he promises: a book that "adds some context and depth to the standard version [of Andrew Jackson's early life] and enriches it with some new material" (p. xii). Booraem's thesis is that Jackson's experiences from his birth in 1767 to his departure for the Tennessee country in 1788 indelibly shaped his character. For better or worse, Jackson "at twenty-one was essentially the same person he would be for the rest of his life" (p. xii). Since the same might be said of billions of other people, Booraem's argument is worthwhile primarily because, as in the case of his previous books on Calvin Coolidge and James A. Garfield, Booraem's biographical subject later became president of the United States.

To call Booraem's narrative detailed would be an understatement. He discusses many incidents and issues that will be of interest largely or exclusively to past or future biographers of Jackson. For example, Booraem examines whether Jackson's family came to the Waxhaws region from Pennsylvania or through Charleston; which families the Jacksons may have stayed with as Revolutionary War refugees; whether Jackson made one or two trips to Charleston during 1783-84; whether Jackson had a chronic problem with excessive salivation or only occasional problems caused by medication; and whether some of Jackson's male relatives and friends had drinking problems or merely drank heartily. Booraem is a highly skilled historian, and he is at his best in analyzing probabilities based on thin evidence or in uncovering heretofore unrecognized connections among obscure Waxhaws residents. That few of Booraem's findings have any broader significance is beside the point, for his goal is to get Young Hickory's story as precisely correct as possible given the fragmentary sources.

Fellow chroniclers of Jackson will be indebted to Booraem for unearthing information and correcting numerous myths and misconceptions. Several other audiences will also enjoy the book, in whole or in part. Any historian who teaches undergraduate classes in the early republic will find several illustrative stories worth incorporating into lectures. Historians of the Carolinas and the southern backcountry will value Booraem's rendering of the social history of the Waxhaws in the late eighteenth century, while military and legal historians will benefit from discussions of Jackson's experiences in the Revolutionary War and of his escapades as a law student and junior member of the North Carolina bar. Most of all, though, the legions of general readers who are fascinated with the American presidency will relish Booraem's recounting of the youth of one of the nation's most memorable and most controversial chief executives.

ANTHONY GENE CAREY

Auburn University