Fathers and children: Andrew Jackson and the subjugation of the American Indian

Mike Rogin was a professor of mine at UC Berkeley in the early 1970's. One of his interests was Jacksonian Democracy. Mike, like many of the professors in Political Science and Philosophy at UC during that time, had a core understanding of psychoanalytic theory which brought additional, and even immense understanding and insight into very complex dilemmas which would normally be simply passed over. Rogin's interests were very much concerned with betrayal and one could extend this to the violation of incest taboos when the parent (someone like Jackson for example) sends his sons out to destroy the Native people; and for certain, rape was well tolerated as a means of terror and subjugation. This is a marvelous book. A person could be initially turned off to it because of the approach, but it is Rogin's approach that is the key here as the questions he provokes are in many ways more important in leading to major and significant insight than the actual content of what is written in the book. Surely, if a person is interested in Jackson, this is a seminal text insofar as gaining understanding of not only that period in US history, but how this perverse paternalistic feature seemingly inherent in our culture evolved, established itself, and then got away with extraordinary crimes that persisted in the inhumane treatment of others, (and even to this day).