What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (Oxford History of the United States) by Daniel Walker Howe Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (Oxford History of the United States)
Book Review: History really this good? Yes.
Summary: 5 Stars
I've not read a better American history book since The Metaphysical Club. It's the best synthesis of this difficult period in American history I've ever read. Far less politically driven than Schlesinger's The Age of Jackson, Howe carries us through these 33 years as if he lived them. The quality of his scholarship is nothing short of world class, exhaustive and analytical, subtle and insightful. This is one of the very few books I've ever read that brings history into the realm of art. It's a masterpiece, right up there with Robert Hughes' The Fatal Shore and Wood's The Radicalism of the American Revolution.
Now, some details. This book is largely a political, economic and military history, but Howe is far too skilled a scholar to ignore the cultural developments of the young country. While not an intellectual history in the spirit of Menand, Howe interweaves important cultural products and events into their political, religious and economic contexts. His separate treatments of the development of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and (ironically) gender equality are particularly sensitive and enlightening. There's so much good stuff here that it reminds one of shopping at the local whole foods market: There are tasty discoveries around every corner.
Howe's primary thesis is about how the legacy of the Federalists, the Whigs, in response to Jeffersonian (and Jacksonian) democracy run amok, did more to create the modern United States than historians have previously understood. Howe illuminates topics that, at first, seem to offer little hope for exciting history - internal improvements, the development of higher education, transportation and communication, religious revival - but he does it with such narrative skill as to emphasize their importance while encouraging you to consider their subsequent impact on the development of the greatly enlarged United States. Of course, the author then goes on to give us penetrating narrative studies of important political and military events that have been told before, but rarely with such keen insight, or from this subtle and critical perspective. The author leaves us in 1848 to contemplate what the enormous changes of the previous 30 years (and the previous five years, in particular) did, and did not do, to our national consciousness.
This is a long book, but you'll not notice. I'm raving about this one because I'm just so excited to see that there are people out there willing to write (and read) good, scholarly, narrative histories of the United States. An essential read for anyone, anywhere in the world, with a keen interest in American history. This book further enhanced my understanding of what it means to be American.
Book Review: Wonderful gift for the person who loves US history
Summary: 5 Stars
I gave this book to my brother who is one of those people who reads EVERYTHING and for whom it's hard to find a new book. He really enjoyed reading this volume, and learned so much he didn't know about the US between the War of 1812 and the Civil War. If you are or have someone in your life who could be a Jeopardy Champion and loves history in particular, this is a great book to get.Book Review: Daniel Walker Howe on the Transformation of America
Summary: 5 Stars
In "What Hath God Wrought" historian Daniel Walker Howe offers a learned and judicious overview of the political and cultural history of the United States between 1815 -- 1848 which he aptly describes as "The Transformation of America". The book covers the history of the United States beginning with Andrew Jackson's triumph at the Battle of New Orleans and concludes with the War with Mexico. I came to this book after reading a similarly through study of this period of American history by Sean Wilenz, "The Rise of American Democracy" (2005) Howe and Wilenz offer different perspectives on this tranformative period of American history, and it is fascinating to compare the two.
Wilenz's book focuses on Andrew Jackson and on what is commonly called "Jacksonian America". Wilenz sees the transformative aspects of the 1815 -- 1848 period as rooted in the extension of sovereignty at both the national and state levels. For Wilenz, the Jacksonian era, for all its excesses and inconsistencies, marked a transformation from a United States based upon elitism, property and privilege to one based on Jeffersonian democracy to include all white males. Democracy is at the heart of Wilenz's narrative, and he shows how it was unable to keep the United States from falling into sectionalism and Civil War.
Howe takes a different approach to the nature of American transformation than does Wilenz. Howe rejects the term "Jacksonian America" or "Jacksonian Democracy" as covering this period. (p. 4) America was not "Jacksonian" in that Jackson's program was always controversial. Furthermore, the age was not "democratic" as witnessed by the policy of Indian removal, the expansion of slavery, and "the exclusion of women and most nonwhites from the suffrage and equality before the law." (p. 4) The expansion of the suffrage, for Howe, was limited to white males,and, in any event had began well before Jacksonian times. Thus, Howe has a major difference in perspective, in this way among others, from Wilenz. Late in his book, Howe summarizes the factors leading to the transformation of America as: 1. the growth of the market economy, facilitated by improvements in transportation; 2. the increasing vigor of Protestant churches and other voluntary associations; 3. the emergency of mass political parties offering options to the electorate. The communications revolution multiplied the effects of these factors. (p. 849)
Howe's political heroes are opponents of Jackson and the Jacksonian democrats, especially John Quincy Adams, to whose memory the book is dedicated, and, as it seems to me, Henry Clay.
Howe emphasizes the revolution in communication and transportation as leading to a strong, expansive United States and as changing radically the character of the nation. His key figure in epitomizing the new era is Samuel Morse, the inventor of the telegraph. The title of this book is taken from Morse's first message on the telegraph sent from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore on May 24, 1844. The Biblical phrase "What Hath God Wrought" shows, for Howe, a certain ambiguity. Taken as concluding with an explanation mark (!) it reads as a celebration of American expansion. But with a question mark at the end (?), as Morse subsequently recounted his initial message, it "unintentionally turned the phrase from an affirmation of the Chosen People's destiny to a questioning of it." (p.7) Howes's book shows an admirable mixture of celebration and questioning.
Howe frequently describes the contrast between Jacksonians and their opponents as involving a difference between quantitative and qualitative expansion. The Jacksonians expanded the franchise and individualism while they pushed the boundaries of the United States by removing the Indians, acquiring the Oregon territory from Britain, and making war with Mexico. For Howe, the Whigs and other cultural opponents of Jackson stressed a qualitative transformation of America. Their political-cultural program included internal improvements, (Clay's American system), educational and scientific advancement, moral and religious growth, and an attempt to capture American unity as opposed to the strife of party. Howe argues that America owes a great deal to the opponents of Jackson -- including the figure of Abraham Lincoln.
There is a great deal in Howe's book about religion as transforming America in what is known as the "Second Great Awakening." Howe emphasizes the role religion played in the abolitionist movement, in opposing the mistreatment of the Indians, in crusades for temperance, and in the development of the movement for women's rights. (In the concluding section of his book, Howe spends a great deal of space praising the 1848 convention for Women's Rights in Seneca Falls, New York.)
Howe's book shows an extraordinary amount of thought and learning, with extensive footnotes on every page and a detailed bibliographical essay at the conclusion. Of the many subjects he addresses, I thought his treatment of the War with Mexico particularly insightful. Howe is deeply critical of the expansionist, aggressive character of this war and of the president, James. K. Polk, who fomented it. Yet he recognizes that in "the long run of history" in some respects the seizure of California from Mexico worked for "the general interests of mankind." For Howe, "God moves in mysterious ways, and He is certainly capable of bringing good out of evil." (p. 811)
Howe's book, especially taken with Wilenz's impressive study, offers much for learning and for thought about the United States, its past, and its future. As Howe concludes: " Like the people of 1848, we look with both awe and uncertainty at what God hath wrought in the United States of America." (p. 855)
Robin Friedman
Book Review: Not History
Summary: 1 Stars
About halfway through the book I began to wonder if this was a history book or a political statement. The latter won out. The book's main thrust was the evil done by white men to the American Indians, the African Americans and the Mexicans and by inference the evil of Bush's war on Iraq.
I cannot understand how the editors of The Oxford History of the United States permitted the book to be published under their umbrella, a little more than "political correctness" gone wild.
I am aware that this is a statement rather than a review and I did read the book through.
Book Review: Thorough & well written history of the period
Summary: 5 Stars
As other reviewers have mentioned, the book is necessarily heavy on political history, though this book is not the tale of the rise and fall of political parties or politicians. Instead, Howe has chosen to evaluate American society largely through a political lens - in fact, he has chosen six major actors to play leading roles in his story: Andrew Jackson, J.Q. Adams, Henry Clay, James K. Polk, John Calhoun, & Daniel Webster.
Although he focuses largely on the achievements (or, in some cases the failures) of these men, he does not ignore society as a whole, nor does he ignore military endeavors, such as the Mexican War and the participants in that conflict.
All told, this is an excellent synthesis of the period. Professor Howe has demonstrated an extraordinary command of the secondary literature of the period, while incorporating many works of recent scholarship (especially the last 10 years). I was very impressed as I read the book with Howe's skillful weaving of a narrative loosely coupled by the theme of a communications revolution, which is much different than many other works pertaining to this period, which focus almost exclusively on the economic transformation that took place in this period.
I was equally impressed with Howe's command of the entire nation; unlike many books about this period, he did not sectionalize the book; by not focusing on just the Southern US, or just the Eastern seaboard, he allows the reader to understand the whole picture.
This is a worthy addition to any library of one who is intrigued by US History, even if that reader is not a 19th century specialist. I would even encourage professors to consider assigning this as a basic text (despite the fact that it is a rather lenghty tome at 860+ pages) for an upper level survey of Jacksonian America. It is a much appreciated addition to the Oxford History of the United States series.