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A Jackson Man: Amos Kendall and the Rise of American Democracy. By Donald B. Cole. Southern Biography Series. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, c. 2004. Pp. xvi, 332. $49.95, ISBN 0-8071-2930-5.)
Donald B. Cole has written a fascinating study of Amos Kendall. Kendall is often stereotyped as the cadaverous fourth auditor of the United States Treasury who wielded power behind the throne as a member of Andrew Jackson's so-called Kitchen Cabinet. Cole brings forth a much fuller picture of Kendall as "the classic American self-made man" (p. 4). A native of Massachusetts and graduate of Dartmouth College, Kendall moved to Kentucky in 1814 and spent almost all of the rest of his life there or in Washington, D.C. Cole demonstrates that Kendall both contributed to and was shaped by the tremendous changes that the country faced during his lifetime. In particular, he focuses on Kendall's relationship with the rise of white men's democracy and the development of market capitalism.
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