My Current Reading
Jackson's always been an interesting person to me. He was undoubtedly one of our most influential presidents, being one of the few to have an era of history named after him. ("The Age of Jackson" refers essentially to the 1820s to the 1850s. He ran in every election from 1824 to 1832 and his Vice President, Martin Van Buren, was elected in 1836, largely because he was Jackson's VP. For the next few decades, Presidential candidates argued over who was the most like Jackson, leading former generals to be candidates in many instances.)
I've gotten up to the start of the War of 1812. I hadn't realized that the Indian Wars which brought Jackson to prominence were part of the War of 1812 as the Indians were trying to push American settlers out of what they considered to be their territory with the help of the British who we fought in that War. Also, it never really clicked with me that Jackson might be the only President who's killed someone in a non-war setting having killed a rival in a duel. (Don't quote me on that. My knowledge of history is not so certain that I can state with certainty that no other President has killed in a similar manner.)
What really intrigues me, though, is that politicians to this day often try to emulate the Jackson persona: an outsider who speaks the truth to power and who will stand up for the common man. I doubt they're consciously doing it, but the popularity of the Jacksonian character continues to this day. Think of Jesse Ventura. John McCain tries to emulate this posture as well. There's plenty of others I'm sure we could think of that fit this mold.
Jackson's probably the first post-Founding generation American who it's necessary to understand in order to understand America. Obviously, there are a number of members of the Founding generation who had great impact on America, but a quick glance, I'd say that the rest of the Presidents/political leaders who need to be understood are: Jackson, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt (another who fit the Jackson mold, in my opinion), FDR, Reagan. All of them had great impacts on our nation, changed the national character and we need to understand them and their influence to understand where are today and where we go from here.