To constitute a nation Book

This book makes its thesis clear by the end of the introduction, pretty well finishes explaining the motives of the common man (Jacksonian Democrats' political base) during the Jacksonian era within the first half of the book, and relies very heavily on a review of the literature to back up the thesis. Therefore, you may want to avoid reading this book unless you've read the following authors and works: Notions of the Americans, by James Fenimore Cooper; Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville; William Leggett, and Robert Rantoul. These works are discussed in detail, and unless you've read them, you won't get that much out of the author's discussion of them. Various historians who wrote much later on the Jacksonian era are also discussed substantively.

It would also help to be very familiar with the career of Martin van Buren, Andrew Jackson's vice-president and successor. There is an entire chapter devoted to van Buren, and I couldn't follow it. (There is no chapter devoted to Jackson, obviously the dominant political figure of the Jacksonian era.)