“For the White House the new year began in gloom.” There’s a casual remark in one of Gore Vidal’s later essays that “No one seems to read The Age of Jackson anymore.” And if you read his novel Burr, which is set right in the middle of it, you see that, indeed, he has. The history is both interesting and strange, and takes some time to think through exactly what it is doing. It is NOT a history of the Jackson presidency, although that plays […]