Robert Vincent Remini (July 17, 1921 – March 28, 2013) was an American historian and a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He wrote numerous books about President Andrew Jackson and the Jacksonian era, most notably a three-volume biography of Jackson. For the third volume of Andrew Jackson, subtitled The Course of American Democracy, 1833-1845, he won the 1984 U.S. National Book Award for Nonfiction. Remini was widely praised for his meticulous research on Jackson and thorough knowledge of him. His books portrayed Jackson in a mostly favorable light and he was sometimes criticized for being too partial towards his subject.

Remini also wrote biographies of other early 19th century Americans, namely Martin Van Buren, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John Quincy Adams, and Joseph Smith. He served as Historian of the United States House of Representatives from 2005 until 2010 and wrote a history of the House, which was published in 2006.

Life

Robert Vincent Remini was born on July 17, 1921, in New York City. His father worked as a credit manager for a coal company. "When I told my parents, they were shocked," Remini recalled. "'Oh!' they said. 'You will starve.'" Remini married Ruth T. Kuhner, whom he had met in kindergarten, in 1948 and they had three children: Elizabeth Nielson, Joan Costello, and Robert W. Remini.

Remini received his M.A. from Columbia University in 1947 and his PhD from Columbia in 1951. At Columbia, he studied under historian Richard Hofstadter. Remini retired in 1991. During his career, he served as a visiting professor at the Jilan University of Technology in China, the University of Richmond, the University of Notre Dame, and Wofford College.

Remini's wife died in May 2012 at the age of 90. "There was an electrifying dynamism about Jackson that I found irresistible," Remini said. He went on to call him "the embodiment of the new American." He added, "This new man was no longer British. He no longer wore the queue and silk pants. He wore trousers, and he had stopped speaking with a British accent." Remini partially defended Jackson's Indian removal policies. He held that had Jackson not orchestrated the removal of the Five Civilized Tribes from their ancestral homelands, they would have been totally wiped out, just like other tribes—namely, the Yamasees, Mohicans, and Narragansetts—which did not move. Of Remini's trilogy, Joel H. Silbey says that "one comes away with the feeling that here is how Jackson saw himself, might have set forth his own case, and wished to be remembered." In his own biography of Jackson, historian H. W. Brands calls Remini's three volume series "[a] monumental work of research and exposition by the dean of Jackson studies." The final volume, Andrew Jackson: The Course of American Democracy, 1833–1845, won the 1984 U.S. National Book Award for Nonfiction.

While Remini has been credited for his unique focus on Jackson the individual, he has also received criticism for seeing things too much from Jackson's point of view and for identifying too closely with his subject. Cole's 1986 review of all three books was generally laudatory but criticized Remini for giving too much credence to Jackson's own rationalizations for his actions, questioning Remini's generally Jackson-favorable characterizations. Per Cole, "Remini's interpretation of Jacksonian Democracy rests upon [the] view that by strengthening the presidency Jackson had led America toward democracy." In a 2011 article, Mark Cheathem argued that Remini downplayed the role of slavery in Jacksonian history, and that his hegemony as a Jackson scholar "seemed to discourage other historians from tackling Jackson's life."

Remini wrote a one-volume abridgment to the original three-volume series, called The Life of Andrew Jackson, which was published in 1988. He delivered a lecture on Jackson at the White House in 1991. Brian Boylan of the Los Angeles Times credits Remini for the ability to write a fair biography of Clay even after his extensive work on Jackson, who was Clay's "bitter enemy." Remini "treats Clay with such affection and care that after half a century of being a vague name in pre-Civil War American history, Henry Clay springs to life in all his fascinating brilliance." A review by Richard Latner states:

In 2008, Remini published A Short History of the United States, which was just under 400 pages long. According to a book review:

His last work was At the Edge of the Precipice: Henry Clay and the Compromise that Saved the Union (2010).

Works

The following is a list of all of the books written by Remini.

  • Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party (1959) online
  • The Election of Andrew Jackson (1963) online
  • Andrew Jackson (1966) online
  • Andrew Jackson and the Bank War: A Study in the Growth of Presidential Power (1967) online
  • The Era of Good Feelings and the Age of Jackson, 1816-1841 (1979); with Edwin A. Miles online
  • The Revolutionary Age of Andrew Jackson (1985) online
  • Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire, 1767–1821 (1977) online
  • Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, 1822–1832 (1981) online
  • Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, 1833–1845 (1984) online
  • The Life of Andrew Jackson (1988). Abridgment of Remini's earlier three-volume biography. online
  • The Jacksonian Era (1989) online
  • Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union (1991) online
  • Daniel Webster: The Man and His Time (1997) online
  • The Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson and America's First Military Victory (1999) online
  • Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars (2001) online
  • John Quincy Adams (2002) online
  • Joseph Smith (2002) online
  • The House: The History of the House of Representatives (2006) online
  • Great Generals Series: Andrew Jackson, A Biography (2008) online
  • A Short History of the United States (2008) online
  • At the Edge of the Precipice: Henry Clay and the Compromise that Saved the Union (2010) online

See also

References

  • In Depth interview with Remini, May 7, 2006