November 15 marked the ceremony for the 1984 American Book Awards at the New York Public Library’s Astor Hall. Carrying the day for the cause of history, was Robert V. Remini. Nonfiction judges Arthur Schlesinger, jr., chair; Daniel Aaron, Scott Berg, Charles Champlin, and Doris Kearns Goodwin deemed Remini’s Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy 1833-1845, Vol. III (Harper & Row) this year’s winner out of a field of five nominations, gleaned from nearly 200 nonfiction submissions.
Arthur Schlesinger, jr., a member of the American Historical Association, described the book as “a superb professional history that makes the American past alive to the general reader.”
Much of Robert Remini’s research and writing have been devoted to Andrew Jackson. His three-volume biography of Jackson is the first major scholarly life of the subject to appear in nearly fifty years. These works include Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire, 1767-1821 (1977); Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, 1822-1832 (1981), and his 1984 winner of the American Book Award. Remini has written other works on Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren.
A member of the AHA for the past thirty-five years, Robert Remini was an AHA Council member from 1979-1981. He was also a member of the Organizing Committee for the First United States/Italian Historians’ Conference held in Florence in October 1983.
Born in New York City, Robert Remini attended Fordham College where he received his BA. His MA and PhD followed at Columbia University. He has taught at both schools. From 1965 to the present, he has been teaching at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle. In addition to teaching, he is the consulting editor of the Jackson Papers Project, which is centered in Nashville and devoted to publishing the writings of Andrew Jackson.
The American Book Award included the tidy sum of $10,000 to each of three category winners.
