Overview

Martin Van Buren was one of the most remarkable politicians not only of his time but in American presidential history. The principal architect of the party system and one of the founders of the Democratic Party, he came to dominate New York--then the most influential state in the Union--and was instrumental in electing Andrew Jackson president. Van Buren's skills as a political strategist were unparalleled (he was known as the ""Little Magician""), winning him a series of high-profile offices: US senator, New York's governor, US secretary of state, US vice president, and finally the White House. In his rise to power, Van Buren sought consensus and conciliation, bending to the wishes of slave interests and complicit in the dispossession of America's Indigenous population--two of the darkest chapters in American history. This new biography of Van Buren--the first full-scale portrait in four decades--charts his ascent from a tavern in the Hudson Valley to the presidency, concluding with his late-career involvement in an antislavery movement. Offering vivid profiles of the day's leading figures (Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, John Quincy Adams, DeWitt Clinton, James K. Polk), James Bradley's book depicts the struggle for power in the tumultuous decades leading up to the Civil War.

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James M. Bradley is coeditor of the Martin Van Buren Papers, based at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee. He is an adjunct instructor in the public history program at State University of New York at Albany, and was the senior project editor of Encyclopedia of New York City, published by Yale University Press. Paul Woodson has won SOVAS & Earphones awards, and has recorded hundreds of audiobooks in many different genres--in American and British accents--and received his BFA in acting at Boston University. In his theater days, he starred in the OOBR Award-winning musical Vincent. He is a member of SAG-AFTRA. Paul Woodson has won SOVAS & Earphones awards, and has recorded hundreds of audiobooks in many different genres--in American and British accents--and received his BFA in acting at Boston University. In his theater days, he starred in the OOBR Award-winning musical Vincent. He is a member of SAG-AFTRA.

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