Customer Reviews

What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (Oxford History of the United States)

5 star:		(59)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

What Hath God Wrought, the latest entry into the marvelous series, The Oxford History of the United States, by Daniel Walker Howe, is another major score for readers and historians alike. It is well a thought out, broad in scope, interesting in concept and a very readable narrative of the United States from the end of the War of 1812 (1815) to the end of the Mexican American War (1848). Howe's subtitle, "The Transformation of America" is proven in an interdisciplinary way throughout its pages. Perhaps the editor, David M. Kennedy, puts it best, "Like Tocqueville's (Democracy in America), his deepest subject in not simply politics - though the pages that follow do full justice to the tumultuous and consequential politics of the era - but the entire array of economic, technological, social, cultural, and even psychological developments that were beginning to shape a distinctively American national identity. Howe brings to bear an impressive command of modern scholarship to explicate topics as varied as the Mexican War; the crafting of the Monroe Doctrine and the clash with Britain over the Oregon country; the emergence of the Whig, Free Soil, and Republican Parties; the Lone Star revolution in Texas and the gold rush in California; the sectional differentiation of the American economy; the accelerating pace of both mechanical and cultural innovations, not least as they affected the organization of the household and the lives of women; and the emergence of a characteristic American literature in the works of writers like Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, James Fenimore Cooper, Margaret Fuller, Frederick Douglass, and Walt Whitman." Howe himself lives up to his words - "Along with the traditional subject matter of history - political, diplomatic, and military events - the story includes the social, economic, and cultural developments that have extensively concerned historians in recent years. This reflects my own conviction that both kinds of history are essential to a full understanding of the past." This is a fabulous historical narrative of a period in history that is generally, and wrongly, simply viewed through the "Jacksonian Democracy" lens. A fine read and clearly worthy of this terrific and scholarly series by the Oxford University Press.

On a somewhat different note, it appears as if readers are in for a treat over the next 12- 24 months with the "missing" volumes at least having manuscripts into David Kennedy (Freedom from Fear) and the series' new editor with the passing of C. Vann Woodward.

Volumes 1 and 2, covering the Colonial Period (1672-1763) have been assigned, in some order, yet to be made public (that I am aware of) to Fred Anderson (University of Colorado) and Andrew Cayton (Miami University of Ohio).

Volume 3 - The Glorious Cause 1763-89, Robert Middlekauf PUBLISHED
Volume 4 - The U.S. from 1789-1815, Gordon Wood (Brown University)
Volume 5- What Hath God Wrought 1815-48, Daniel Walker Howe (UCLA) PUBLISHED and reviewed above
Volume 6- Battle Cry of Freedom, 1848-65, James McPherson PUBLISHED
Volume 7- Leviathan: America Comes of Age, 1865-1900, H.W. Brands (Texas) - scratched from series but due out in October/November of this year (2007)
Volume 8- Reawakened Nation, 1896-1929, Bruce Schulman (Boston University)
Volume 9- Freedom from Fear, 1929-1945, David M. Kennedy PUBLISHED
Volume 10- Grand Expectations, 1945-74, James T. Patterson PUBLISHED
Volume 11- Restless Giant, 1974-2000, James T. Patterson PUBLISHED
Volume 12 - a volume on US Foreign Policy, not period specific, George C. Herring (University of Kentucky) due out 2008

The decades following the War of 1812 witnessed some of the most dramatic developments in our nation's history. In that time, the United States underwent political, economic, and social transformations that profoundly reshaped the country, taking it from its post-colonial beginnings and setting it on the road towards its dynamic emergence in the world. Daniel Walker Howe's book is a narrative of these years and the changes that took place, as well as what those changes meant to the future of the country.

Though Howe examines nearly every aspect of the period, politics dominate his coverage, which is understandable given his background as a political historian. The figure of Andrew Jackson looms large in these pages, yet Howe rejects any characterization of the era as "Jacksonian", arguing that the phrase glosses over his controversial and divisive nature. This controversy is reflected well within his account, as Howe is highly critical of Jackson (something that is somewhat predictable from the start given that his book is dedicated to the memory of John Quincy Adams), asserting that the seventh president demonstrated an authoritarian bent throughout his career. His arguments on this, as with so many other parts of the books, are convincing, and supported by an impressive command of the scholarship on the period. Nor is the author shy on asserting his own viewpoint in these debates, arguing that a "communications revolution" was more demonstrable than the "market revolution" seen by Charles Sellers and others, that the emergence of the market economy was not the negative development Sellers made it out to be, and that Jackson's campaigns were hardly the democracy-expanding force asserted by historians such as Sean Wilentz. These historiographical assertions do not slow down his work, however; if anything, he could have engaged them a bit more within the text to explain why such interpretations are contestable.

This is a minor quibble with a major achievement. Broad in scope and encompassing an impressive amount of material, Howe provides a readable and perceptive survey of a vigorous young nation, one that experienced a breathtaking number of developments during these years. His book is among the best entries of the "Oxford History of the United States" series, one that surely will be a standard text on the era for many decades to come.

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.

What Hath God Wrought were the first words spoken over the telegraph. They were uttered by the inventor of that device Samuel F.B. Morse on May 24, 1844 as the line from Washington D.C. to Baltimore became operable. The words were taken from Numbers 23;23 in the Bible.
So begins this magisterial history of America from the War of 1812's ending at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 to the conclusion of the Mexican War. With brilliance, insight and expertise on a broad array of topics the author Daniel Walker Howe has crafted a wonderful panoramic view of our land in this era of social, political, transportational and communicational change.
Three major changes occurred in this time which would transform rural America into the beginnings of the industrial giant she is today:
1. The growth of the market economy aided by internal improvements such as canals, railroads and mass communication innovations such as a cheap press to meet growing the needs of a growing literacy in the populace;
the demise of the National Bank and the growth of paper money circulation and more international trade being developed.
2. The growth of churches as voluntary and no longer state controlled. Howe devotes a good deal of space to the rise of the Transcendental movement in New England; the rise of the homegrown American Mormons; the
rise of abolitionism, femininistic movements and the influence religion had in political and cultural life.
3. The rise of the national political parties and the beginning of modern
campaigns for office. We see the clash between the Democrats under the leadership of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren dueling with Henry Clay and the Whigs during much of this period. When the era ended in 1848 the stage was set for the bitter national debate over the role of slavery in American life culminating in the bloodbath of the Civil War and the freeing of the slaves.
Howe defines the differences between the Jacksonian Democrats and the Whigs by saying of the former:
The Democrats favored the removal of Native Americans to west of the Mississippi River; they favored low tarrifs and chattel slavery, were inimcal to internal improvements and were imperialistic in their manifest destiny quest to master the continent. Democrat James K. Polk the eleventh president launched the war against Mexico in 1846 and dueled with the British over the Oregon territory. He won California, New Mexico, Oregan and Texas for the United States.
The Whigs (named for the British party which opposed monarchy: slam at Andrew Jackson's hegemony over national politics as seen in the nullification crisis with South Carolina in 1832 . Southern Rights Senator and Vice-President John C. Calhoun was a bitter enemy of Jackson.)
The Whigs favored internal improvements; tariffs; the Bank of the United States under the directorship of Nicholas Biddle and a strong Federal government. Their leaders were men like Henry Clay and one of the heroes of the book-John Quincy Adams. Adams supported good causes and was a friend of African-Americans and Indians. Like Congressman Abraham Lincoln he opposed the expansionistic Mexican War. Arguments over the validity of the invasion of Mexico remind this reviewer of the battles over our involvement in Iraq by an aggressive administration eager to display military clout around the world.
This massive text of 900 pages is not for the timid! It is a detailed account of the era which is little remembered by most Americans. It was
a pivotal time when the old America of the Revolution was transformed into the modern age. Such giants strode the earth in those days! In the Senate there was Clay, Calhoun, Webster and Benton. In the White House were such men as Old Hickory Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren; in the military realm strode Winfield Scott, Zachary Taylor and the young Robert E; Lee. American authors came into their own as our national literature saw the publication of classics by Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Fenimore Cooper, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Margaret Fuller.
Howe is pro-Whig and has harsh things to say about Andrew Jackson who was a white supremist. The Whig Party dissolved over slavery with many of them becoming members of the new Republican Party led to victory in the presidential contest of 1860 by Abraham Lincoln of Illinois.
America in the 1815-1848 timespan was rowdy, rough and xenephobic. It was a white man's land though women and black voices were being raised. The American Indians were persecuted and immigrants such as the newly arrived Irish fresh from the 1845 potato famine had to fight hard for their place in a new society. It was also a time of unbounded optimism when men and women rose to the top through hard work, growing educational opportunities and an expansion of the vocational market. The American experiment of democracy was then and is now a bright beacon of hope to a suffering humanity. Dr. Howe has done a brilliant job in this wonderful book!

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

This nearly 900 page tome is an amazing work of history. It covers in amazing detail one of the most critical periods of American history, from the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812 through the discovery of gold in California and then ensuing gold rush. The work is both exhaustive and covers every aspect from political, to economic to social developments.

Make no bones about it, this is not a work you want to read unless you are willing to devote a) two weeks to the materials b) enjoy reading a complete history of the era and c) have a passion for the series. The author does a very good job at highlighting both the compelling major figures of the era with some of the more unique people who later on became more influential.

Either way this is another feather in the cap of the Oxford History of the United States!

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.

The highest praise that I can give this book is that it is on par with the already published volumes of the Oxford History of the United States. What Hath God Wrought is a superb survey and analysis of the period from the end of the War of 1812 to the end of the Mexican-American War. Walker Howe provides excellent narrative of the political history of this period accompanied by thoughtful descriptions and analyses of the many remarkable changes occurring in American society. Walker Howe covers the emergence of the second American party system, the Second Great Awakening and other religious developments, the beginning of industrialization, the enormous increase in cotton cultivation and American involvement in the international market, the changes brought by new transportation and communications technologies, the American Renaissance, the great westward movements, Indian removal, and a number of other topics in many well written and integrated sections. All of these topics are extremely well integrated into the basic political, diplomatic, and military narrative. The quality of writing is excellent thoughout with Walker Howe drawing on a wide array of primary and impressive secondary sources.

Running throughout this volume are a couple of recurrent themes. One is the increasing complexity and speed of daily brought about the great revolutions of communications and transport technology. Andrew Jackson, for example, came to Washington in a horse drawn carriage and returned to Tennessee via railroad. An even more prominent theme is the recurrent conflict between 2 visions of American society and American government. One of these, associated largely with the Democratic party, was a vision of a predominantly agrarian America with a weak Federal government and dominated by white men. The alternative vision, associated with the Whigs, was one of a more mixed industrial and agrarian economy whose development was facilitated by a vigorous (by 19th century standards) central government subsidizing infrastructure on a national scale. This particular vision was associated also with reformist Protestant movements stressing self- and social improvement and sympathetic to the claims of Indians, slaves, and women (though not necessarily to the claims of Catholic religious minorities). Walker Howe does particularly well in using this theme to show the relationships between major cultural and social trends and many important political and diplomatic events.

Walker Howe, who has written previously on the Whigs, evinces considerable sympathy for the Whig vision, even to the extent of making counterfactual suggestions that greater Whig political success would have had a beneficial outcome on the subsequent course of American history. His case is very strong.

As is the case with all books in this series, there is a very good bibliographic essay for readers wishing to delve deeper into the literature.

Like several of its predecessors in the Oxford series, this book is destined to win one or more major prizes and will be the standard survey for years to come.

Being retired and with a particular interest in this period of US history (for reasons disclosed below), I possessed both adequate time and motivation to undertake the reading of this voluminous work, hoping that it wouldn't bog down into a pedantic recitation by page 200. Far beyond my most optimistic expectations, it turned out to be a real "page turner", not like one of those Grisham novels, but rather a work that kept opening my eyes to what the reality of this country was back then, and how that past still bears witness to what we are experiencing today. It is nothing less than astonishing for the author to attempt and succeed in combining so many disciplines of knowledge into such a lucid, comprehensive portrayal of what our forefathers did, recorded, and left as a legacy for us today.

As a lay reader with great interest in, but only a relatively superficial understanding of what went on during the 1815-1848 period, the book offers innumerous facts and subsequent interpretations by the author, as footnoted and sourced from hundreds of secondary, scholarly works. This academic format, however, never slowed down my understanding of and appreciation for what was going on. If one has some interest in our Presidents of that period (i.e. Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler and Polk) the narrative covers most of them in detail and offers many startling (at least to this lay person) revelations which, in hindsight, has me scratching my head as to why certain of these gentlemen have such a high positive profile today. Mr. Howe definitely has his biases in appreciation of these men, but supports his interpretations with scholarly attention to factual details about their personalities, politics, and policies.

Andrew Jackson, the well-coiffured fellow we see on the face of the $20 bill at every ATM visit, and who we know as the military hero of the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812, comes off as a protector of the union, but otherwise a rather bullying, temper prone imperialist, and with few exceptions, having little concern or care for the well being of any but the caucasian male race. As Mr. Howe points out, the supreme irony of his continued appearance on the $20 dollar bill, despite being both against an independent national bank (i.e. akin to today's federal reserve bank) and the use of paper money, is something one can only sit back and be befuddled by (the reasoning for this decision made by our government back in 1928 is not available for public scrutiny).

The view towards John Quincy Adams - the curmudgeonly old man portrayed so well by Anthony Hopkins in Steven Spielberg's Amistad movie - is much more positive and forgiving, as Howe details his rather enlightened approach (for that day) to social classes other than the white male, economic development using federal funds, and foreign policy. Finally, the portrayal of James K. Polk as the scheming, secretive President who plotted and waged an aggressive war on Mexico during 1846-48 while all the time keeping Congress off stride with his manipulations, surely brings to mind both the thinking behind and execution of today's war in Iraq by Messrs. Bush and Cheney. Substitute "soil" for "oil" and you pretty much understand what was going on then and now.

Knowing that the inspiration for the book's title and its central figure representative of the themed importance of communications and transportation in the progress of our nation at that time was Samuel F.B. Morse (also a noted historical artist and leader of the arts community of that period), I was hoping that the contribution of visual arts to this period would be recognized, at least in some ancillary way. However, despite including a well chosen series of reproduced portraits and genre paintings, prints and sculpture representative of personalities and events of this period, the text itself completely ignores the topic. While some attention is paid to music, the theatre, and literature of the time, in particular in relation to ties to slavery and its themes, apparently the visual arts represented too "highbrow" of a topic for inclusion.

As I see it though, there could have been - especially as part of the chapters on the "New Economy" and/or "American Renaissance" - an effort to tie in the seemingly disparate, but actually connected topics of the deity/millenialism, nature, transcendentalism, urbanism, book and serial illustrations, the first original american school of landscape painting (later dubbed the Hudson River School), and the beginnings of travel and tourism by the emerging middle class of the period. As there were many strong ties between writers and artists during this time, this would not have been a difficult thing to do, and because of its absence, I can only give a four star rating to the book. Notwithstanding, if you have a few weeks of leisure time to devote to understanding in detail how we evolved into what we have become as a nation, I can't think of a more productive use of ones time. Thanks Dr. Howe for your wonderful contribution.

The books in Oxford History of the United States, as a family, have identifying traits. All are detailed, informative and very readable. In addition, they stay within the modern sensibilities and views on history, for some this is a good thing and for others a problem. I have never found that this approach distracts from the good solid political and social history the series presents.
What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 is an excellent addition to this series and contains all the family traits we expect. This is a big book with over 800 pages of text. The book covers the politics of the two party system, how they came into being, their appeal and platforms. The questions on what a weak Federal Government could do and what was needed are well developed. The author is able to cover these issues in a logical manner while making clear the parties platforms and the questions involved. Government policy created a chaotic economic system of boom and bust that plays on politics. Once again, the author keeps us clearly in the picture showing real skill in making the issues understandable.
The best part of the book is the social history. This was a rich and complex time or immigration, religious revival, expansion to the Mississippi River and the growth of cities. This complex society is the heart of the book. The author's straightforward reporting allows the reader to understand life as it was not as we wish to see it. The California Gold Rush, Irish and German immigration, Texas and the war with Mexico sit on a firm foundation established in early chapters. This allows us to understand how these events built the America that went into the Civil War. Every person interested in the Civil War should read this book! It greatly increased my understanding of how the war started and was fought.
I recommend all the books in this series. This is one of the best and is very close to a must read for anyone with an interest in American History.