Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson (American History)

Author - David S. Reynolds ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Hardcover Book item from Harper was reviewed on 10-Dec-2008.

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1) Hardcover Book Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson (American History) by Harper. Reynolds history resuscitates Jackson´s reputation and places his presidency in the political, cultural, and religious context of the "Age of Jackson" (roughly 1820 to 1850). As with all histories that cover a specific time scope, the selection is somewhat artificial, but Reynolds´ account does a good job of setting the stage for Jackson´s entrance (the Revolutionary generation growing old, the country growing west, the culture growing up, and religion growing wild), and pointing the spotlight of the Age´s impact on the decades of war over slavery just off stage.

Slavery and Manifest Destiny were the central issues of the Age of Jackson, as abolition began to make literary and political headway and the country continued to expand westward with an attitude of providential grant. This growth symbiotically fed on and into the religious ferment that was a key characteristic of this period. Reynolds does a good job of providing the broad outline, then focusing on a few key participants in the history so we can see both forest and trees.

Jackson is the broad-shouldered centerpiece of the Age, of course, with his country upbringing, cursory education, and coarse manners standing tall as the accepted portrait of the man, the President, and the Age. Reynolds, while acknowledging these givens, focuses on Jackson´s political skills (surprisingly adept) and his attitude toward race (the native American removal policy, while horribly flawed, was based on paternalistic notions of fairness that reflected the mainstream of his time), while showing that this bluff and gruff duelist and frontiersman was actually capable of holding and expressing deep love for his wife and for God.

For more on Jackson, the most recent full-length biography is Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times by H. W. Brands, which I also rated four stars.

Regardless of your take on his political leadership, you will acknowledge Jackson as an honorable man after reading this book, and you will have a better understanding of the Age he characterized so well it bears his name. You will see, in the Waking Giant, the outlines of the literary, religious, and political America we live in today.¤

2) Hardcover Book Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson (American History) by Harper. Purchased on the Amazon Marketplace. Easy to make he selection and the transaction. Book arrived in great shape. Price was good. The b okk was shipped right away. A great experience.

I am really enjoying the book. It covers the early 1800s in a manner that gives me much more insight to the developing nation than I had before. Interesting personal and cultural information brings the insights to light. Highly recommended to the history buff or anyone interested in how Americans came to be such unique people in this world.¤

3) Hardcover Book Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson (American History) by Harper. Waking Giant is a new book by Dr. David S. Reynolds who teaches at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. The book deals with America in the Age of Andrew Jackson.
The book covers the years from 1815 to 1848. During this era the United States tripled in population and industrial might. The era began with the end of the War of 1812 ending with the Mexican War of 1846-1848.
The greatest president of the era was Andrew Jackson (1828-1836). He was the first president born in a log cabin to a poor family; Jackson was also the first president not born into the gentry of Virginia or Masachusetts. He is famous for his defeat of the Bank of the United States; standing down South Carolina in the nullification crisis of 1832 and defending Peggy Eaaton in the infamous petticoat affair. Jackson increased the power of the executive office through the frequent use of the veto and his personal charisma with the American people.
The other presidents in this era were mediocre to adequate. Martin Van Buren the eigth president suffered from an economic depression though he did a good job diplomatically. William Henry Harrison died a month into his term to be succeeded by John Tyler. Tyler was a slaveowner favoring the south. He is notable for siring 15 children! James K. Polk was an effective president during his one term in office. Polk led the nation to victory over Mexico adding more territority to the USA than any other president since Jefferson and the Louisiana Purcahse The era ended with the presidential election victory of Whig Zachary Taylor the slaveholding hero in the Mexican War. He soon died and was succeeded by mediocre Millard Fillmore. Franklin Pierce was a failure in the office as the nation´s 14th chief executive.
Party politics was wild and wooly! Jackson helped found the modern Democratic Party while the Whigs grew weaker failing due to divisions over the slavery issue. The Republicans emerged in the 1850s as a party of abolition and free soil. Lincoln would be the first Republican elected as president.
The era saw great strides in transportation. The Erie Canal was completed as railroads, steamboats, telegraphs, improvements in mail delivery drew the young giant of a nation closer together.
Entertainment featured minstrel shows, stage plays and novel reading.
One of the most fascinating chapters in the book deals with religion in this era. We see revivals in the great awakening; the rise of the Mormons and New England transcendalism. Brief accounts are given of the Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists and Roman Catholics. America was a nation where religion was an important spiritual element in the lives of most people.
This was an age of great native writing! Such authors as James Fenimore Cooper, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, the Alcotts, Theodore Parker and Margaret Fuller who were transcendentalists. Other important authors include Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Walt Whitman. America became a newspaper reading nation as literary rates increased in the ante-bellum era.
The greatest issue facing the republic was slavery. Abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, the Beechers, Elijah Lovejoy and others exerted their moral authority on the minds of Americans. Great leaders of the cause in the Congress included John Quincy Adams, William Henry Seward and Daniel Webster. The secessionists were led by such states rights advocates as John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. Henry Clay of Kentucky was a slaveholder who urged compromise.
The era ended with the slavery issue unresolved. It would only be solved by a Civil War killing over 600,000 young men.
Advances were made in the care of the mentally ill, the blind and the cause of women. Leaders in these causes included Dorthea Dix and Lucretia Mott. American Indians had to endure the hell of the Trail of Tears as they were persecuted by the dominant male white supremist culture.
Reynolds has a textbook style of reporting facts. The book serves as agood introduction to the time covered but is not in the same league as works on the era by Sean Willentz and Daniel Waler Howe. The book is well illustrated. The book could serve well as a college textbook. I enjoyed the book and will turn to it often when researching this fascinating time in our nation´s history.
¤

4) Hardcover Book Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson (American History) by Harper. I have read two of David Reynolds´ books, this one and the biography of John Brown. In both cases, while the books were rich in cultural anecdotes--particularly, in Waking Giant, the sexual tensions between the dawning Victorian Age and the age of mass produced pulp pornography--politically they are astonishingly facile. Reynolds´ argument in John Brown, for example, that Brown was a terrorist who happened to be on the right side is simply a rehash of the "ends justify the means" argument. Didn´t Chris Matthews say the same thing about Barack Obama´s buddy, William Ayers? Waking Giant is even worse--essentially a rehash of Arthur Schlesinger´s argument that Andrew Jackson was a precursor to The New Deal and the joys of activist government. Reynolds basically buys Schlesigner´s, Charles Sellers and Sean Wilentz´s arguments at face value even the ones that have largely been discredited, such as Jackson´s role in destroying the Bank of the U.S.--the nation´s central money supply--and the resulting financial Depression. Perhaps worst of all is his excusing of Jackson´s racial policies on the ground that most people in antebellum America thought that way. Perhaps so, but not everyone had Jackson´s power to implement policy. The Whigs, a political party Reynolds unjustly demeans, were opposed to Indian removal. Jackson institutionalized white supremacy as a key to the Democratic Party, something which lasted until 1964. Finally, no book of this sort should be without footnotes. Not having them might appeal to the general public, but they do no favors to those who want to find the source of particular quotes or information. This book came out in September, so it is a bit much to accuse Reynolds of wishing to piggy back on the election of Barack Obama, as Jon Meacham so clearly intended in his new book on Jackson, but it is really easy to get the feeling that Reynolds was anticipating it. The best, most thoroughly documented account of this period will remain for the forseeable future Daniel Walker Howe´s What Hath God Wrought. All other´s are just second rate.¤

5) Hardcover Book Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson (American History) by Harper. This is another in Tantor´s well-produced books-on-CD. The book itself is an enjoyable and, at times, entertaining history of the "Era of Good Feelings" and Jacksonian America. The author, David Reynolds, is superb in describing the times and personalities of the pre-Civil War era.¤

6) Hardcover Book Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson (American History) by Harper.

America experienced unprecedented expansion and turmoil in the years between 1815 and 1848. In Waking Giant, Bancroft Prize-winning historian and literary critic David S. Reynolds illuminates the period´s exciting political story as well as the fascinating social and cultural movements that influenced it. He casts fresh light on Andrew Jackson, who redefined the presidency, along with John Quincy Adams and James K. Polk, who expanded the nation´s territory and strengthened its position internationally.

Waking Giant captures the turbulence of a democracy caught in the throes of the controversy over slavery, the rise of capitalism, and the birth of urbanization. Reynolds reveals unknown dimensions of the Second Great Awakening with its sects, cults, and self-styled prophets. He brings to life the reformers, abolitionists, and temperance advocates who struggled to correct America´s worst social ills. He uncovers the political roots of some of America´s greatest authors and artists, from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Edgar Allan Poe to Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand, and he reveals the shocking phenomena that marked the age: bloody duels and violent mobs, P. T. Barnum´s freaks and all-seeing mesmerists, polygamous prophets and wealthy prostitutes, table-lifting spiritualists and rabble-rousing feminists. All were crucial to the political and social ferment that led to the Civil War.

Meticulously researched and masterfully written, Waking Giant is a brilliant chronicle of America´s vibrant and tumultuous rise.

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 7-Jan-2009, 00608265689780060826567, 680-250-420-561-221-191-8

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