In this major reconsideration of Herman Melville's life and work, Michael Rogin shows that Melville's novels are connected both to the important issues of his time and to the exploits of his patrician and politically prominent family.

Fawn M. Brodie has called Fathers and Children "the most brilliant psychoanalytic study of an American president yet published-altogether extraordinary." Michael Paul Rogin's volume is now available in paperback for the fi rst time. Andrew Jackson-valiant defender of New Orleans against the British, stalwart spokesman for the Union against nullifi cation, the common man's champion against special interests-has been considered a great president and a symbol for his age. Now Rogin reveals the dark interior of Jackson's life and career, his hostility toward the American Indian and his...