'What Hath God Wrought' by Daniel Walker Howe
[Cross-posting latest book summary I put out on LinkedIn.]
I had wanted to read this contribution to the Oxford History of the United States series for a while because the period of the American experience the book covers (1815-1848) always felt like a bit of a black hole to me.
In that respect, I found What Hath God Wrought to be very informative as I gained a much better appreciation of how the people and events during those years set patterns of culture, structure and behavior that still show their mark in the United States of today.
This was the period where the country concluded one war with Britain and forced another one with Mexico, thus fully shaping the geographic extent of what became the contiguous United States - save for the small part of the southwest obtained via the Gadsen Purchase a few years later.
It was a time where the *relative* homogeneity of the country first started to unravel between territorial expansion, the gradual rise of industrialism and urbanization, and changing patterns of immigration. This, in turn, created more pronounced sectional and economic conflicts which led to the formation of what we now consider to be today's two-party political framework, the American style of election campaigns and persistent conflicts over the role and mechanisms of national government.
This was the era where the country's religious/spiritual impulse deepened but greatly diversified in its expression, spawning numerous - and often contradictory - movements to improve individuals and society. Sadly, it was also the shameful era where the country allowed the institution of slavery to strengthen its grip and where it treated Native Americans most callously.
Though undoubtedly influenced by the lens of early 21st century experience from which he is writing, Daniel Walker Howe does make a compelling argument that the interlocking revolutions in transportation and communication technologies during this time (especially the railroads and the telegraph) were a key enabler to the degree with which the country changed as they allowed the dispersion of goods, capital and ideas across the growing landscape at a rate unthinkable in earlier times.
While the book is clearly very well-researched, it is written in a lively and approachable style. I particularly liked how the author varied chapters between those that were more chronological in approach and those that were more thematic. That said, it is quite long at ~850 pages and felt repetitive at times. Some tighter editing would have been helpful in my view.
