What Hath God Wrought

The Transformation of America, 1815 - 1848

By: Daniel Walker Howe

Narrated by: Patrick Cullen

Length: 32 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

Pulitzer Prize, History, 2008

In this addition to the esteemed Oxford History of the United States series, historian Daniel Walker Howe illuminates the period from the Battle of New Orleans to the end of the Mexican-American War, an era of revolutionary improvements in transportation and communications that accelerated America's expansion and prompted the rise of mass political parties.

He examines the rise of Andrew Jackson and his Democratic party but contends that John Quincy Adams and other advocates of public education, economic integration, and the rights of blacks, women, and Indians were the true prophets of America's future.

Howe's panoramic narrative - weaving together social, economic, and cultural history with political and military events - culminates in the controversial but brilliantly executed war against Mexico that gained California and Texas for America.

Please note: The individual volumes of the series have not been published in historical order. What Hath God Wrought is number V in The Oxford History of the United States.

Listen to more of the definitive Oxford History of the United States.

©2007 Oxford University Press, Inc. (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"One of the most outstanding syntheses of U.S. history published this decade." ( Publishers Weekly)
"He is a genuine rarity: an English intellectual who not merely writes about the United States but actually understands it." ( Washington Post)
"A stunning synthesis....it is a rare thing to encounter a book so magisterial and judicious and also so compelling." ( Chicago Tribune)

Great book, but slight overkill on religion imo

It was very clear and thorough just like the rest of this series. I enjoyed it very much. My only complaint on this one is the sheer amount of time spent on all the religious stuff. I personally got tired of hearing about all the similarities and differences of the endless branches of religions popping up everywhere. I know it was important for the time though, so perhaps it needed to be discussed as much

An often overlooked peroid of U.S. history

A well reseached and nicely presented account of an often overlooked period of U.S. history.

Well done

Best way to learn US History and what it means to be an American. Especially enjoyed the descriptions of daily life and personal stories.

great book, but poorly organized on audible

please organize the audible chapters according to book chapters. that is, chapter 6: on audible should be the title of the corresponding chapter or section in the book.

Fantastic content, faulty narration

This book provides a comprehensive overview of US history from the end of the War of 1812 to just after the admission of California to the Union. The ebb and flow of politics provides the main narrative framework for the book, into which Howe weaves detailed discussions of the competing social, economic, religious and technological forces that slowly transformed the coastal states of the founders into a continent-spanning empire riven by internal disputes that would erupt in the Civil War and reverberate for more than a century after. Howe makes the entire era come alive by drawing on a wide variety of primary sources, from census data to the writings contemporary diarists and newspaper accounts, and incorporating many engaging quotes.

This would be a perfect listen for an avid student of American history, since it covers a frequently overlooked period (overlooked, I would add, for reasons which Howe discusses at length towards the end of the book) were it not for the truly horrible quality of the recording. The narrator is overall quite good, but the editing is probably among the worst I have ever encountered. There are noticeable jumps in audio quality and speed throughout, sometimes even within the same sentence. These imperfections are substantial enough that at times I found myself listening more to the atrocious mixing than the actual content, which was a shame.

bad editing

Good book, good narrator, but the editing was horrible... leaving no pauses where they should be, running all the sentences together unnaturally. A tedious chore to listen to..almost as if the editors were trying to make the book as short as possible by crunching the sentences together as closely as they could. Never had the problem before with any other book -- I hope I never run into it again.

Great Content, Great Voice, Terrible Editing

What made the experience of listening to What Hath God Wrought the most enjoyable?

The content was great. This book covers a wider range of different areas of history (social, economic, government, religion, etc.) than any other history book I've listened to or read.

What didn’t you like about Patrick Cullen’s performance?

I think Patrick Cullen's voice is great. But the "performance" was terrible. I don't think Patrick was to blame here. This seems to be a purely technical issue in the post processing. I don't know if they did a lot of editing and overdubbing, or what. But it almost sounds like two different people were narrating and they were switching randomly between the two. It also seems hurried, but again, it doesn't sound like Patrick actually read it that way, i.e. perhaps some part of the processing was trying to reduce inter word gaps or something. This is by far the worst production I've come across in an audiobook. I was able to adapt to it mostly after a while, and I enjoyed the content enough to continue to endure through it to the end. But I wish they would go back to the original recordings and fix this.

Fundamentally reads like a (very good) textbook

I've been reading (listening to) some American history via biographies of major characters. When you get to this time frame, there are fewer really good biographies to listen to, so I selected this book to help supplement the time frame. As others have noted, it splits time pretty evenly between political and social history. I was more interested in the political history, but the author does a nice job of making the social history fit in and motivate the political history. I thus would NOT use that as a criterion to dismiss this book for those more interested in the political side of things. I came away with a lot of things that I sort of knew put into better context and explained, plus (of course) I learned a lot.

A plus is that the author is relatively neutral, but not painfully so. Partisans of Jackson and Polk might have a few feathers ruffled. In any case, he is pretty open about when he is analyzing and opining.

As others have noted, there is a bit with the reading that you just have to live with. The reader is basically very good. However, there are LOTS of obvious edits where the sound quality changes dramatically for a few seconds (as if he were using a different microphone or the recording levels were different). If you are a performance purist, I cannot deny you'll find this distracting at times. Personally, I chalked it up to the fact that this was basically a very long textbook that was never going to make a ton of money on the audio....and they decided not to spend the money fixing the edits that would be required for a "blockbuster." It's still a little annoying, but not the end of the world.

Great book but (exceptionally) poor production quality

I’m 3 books into the Oxford history of the United States, and about 40 books into my audible life. This book was a great history and perfect answer to my goals to better understand American history. As the author states in the closing pages, this book “is a story, not an argument,” which is what I was looking for.

That said, this is by far the most disappointing production of any audio boom I have ever read. The narration has the feel that it was recorded by 6 different speakers (or one different speaker at 6 very different times of his life). It is incredibly distracting. Literally individual sentences are spliced in within a longer exposition, in which the splice is distractingly different in tone, timbre, and delivery. It is truly bizarre and like nothing I’ve ever heard in an audio book. Disappointing for such an otherwise excellent book.

Detailed, but not objective

What made the experience of listening to What Hath God Wrought the most enjoyable?

The high level of detail, information on prominent personalities, and many quotes from the personal journals and letters of more average people of the era.

Would you recommend What Hath God Wrought to your friends? Why or why not?

No. It is a very long, very detailed book. If that appeals to you then you might like it. Most people I know like things to move along more quickly.

What does Patrick Cullen bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The verbal highlighting of some details and points that might have otherwise been buried in a dense text such as this one.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Not possible.

Any additional comments?

The author has an obvious bias, which nearly caused me to quit listening about 30 minutes in, but I decided that since it was so obvious, I would be able to mentally filter the facts from the propaganda. Overall it is a very detailed look at an often neglected, but formative portion of American history.