An Interview with Daniel Walker Howe

30 Historically Speaking March/April 2008 An Interview with Daniel Walker Howe Conducted by Donald A. Yerxa DANIEL WALKER HOWE'S WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 is an award-winning interpretive survey of theperiodfrom the battle of New Orleans to the end of the MexicanAmerican War. This latest installment in the Oxford History of the United States series was afinalistfor the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Awardfor Nonfiction andwinnerof the New York HistoricalSocietyAmerican History Book Pri^e and the 2008 Pulitzer Pri^efor History. Howe, the leading historian of the American Whig Party, is an emeritusprofessor of history at Oxford University and UCLA. Historically Speaking editorDonaldYerxa interviewedhim on February 13, 2008. DonaldA. Yerxa: How didyou go about creating such a massive synthesis? Daniel Walker Howe: I made an oudine, dien took it chapter by chapter. The outline changed as I went along, and I often returned to chapters written earlier to revise themin dielightofwhatI'd donelater. I didn 't write the chapters in the order diey appear in the book; chapter one was I think the last one I wrote. To a large extent, I discovered'my interpretation as I went along. For example, only late, when trying to explain my book to some fellow scholars working on the problems of developing countries today, did I realize how much the economic development of the early 19th-century United States had in common with the problems of the 21 st-century Third World. Yerxa: Is writing avolume in the Oxford History series markedly different from other writing you've done? Howe: Oh, yes. I've never before written for a general audience. Like most historians, I'd only written for an academic audience. We usually write for each other and our students. Yerxa: Who is your audience for a book like this? Howe: The general, literate, curious public: people who think reading about history might be interesting and want to try the experiment. I find it profoundly ironic that at the very time when historians have been trying to be more inclusive in our subject matter, we have been growingless and less inclusive in our audience . While we tryin ourwritingto go beyondpoliticians and kings and generals, and have more to say aboutthe general public, we yet fail to speak to the general public. The alienation between academic and popular history is dysfunctional, and I wish I had started sooner to combat it. It's a terrible tactical mistake for historians. By not writing for a general audience , we set ourselves up to be trashed as "tenured radicals" who inhabit "ivory towers" and are out of touch with mainstream American opinion. Yerxa: Whatwere the most daunting challenges? Rewards? Daniel Walker Howe Howe: From the outset, I wanted to be inclusive in subject matter. I wanted to include both traditional history (thatis, political, diplomatic, and militaryhistory ) alongwith the newer kinds of history that have so extensively preoccupied our profession in recent decades (such as social, cultural, and economic history ). I believe both kinds are necessary to understanding the past. Nowadays, very few historians address both die traditional and the new kinds of history . But I think the rewards of doing so are great. Historygets made both from the top down and from the bottom up. Yerxa: What attracted you initially to the 19th century? Howe: I was first attracted to the study of history when my father put his little boy on his lap and told me about Hannibal crossing the Alps with elephants to fight the Romans. Nineteendi-century American history attracted me in college mosdy because I wanted to learn about the Civil War. But of more importance , I think,iswhypeople oughtto beinterested in die United States between 1815 and 1 848, and diat I am only recentlyin a position to explain. What makes that period interesting is that it was the time when America ceased to be a Third World country where manypeople had to eatwhattheygreworhunted and wore homemade clothes. It was the time when the modern America we live in was born, with instant communications, spreadingliteracy, rapid transportation , mass political parties, nationwide reform movements , the proliferation of different religions and philosophies, allcompetingthroughthe media forthe...