Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson

America experienced unprecedented growth and turmoil in the years between 1815 and 1848. It was an age when Andrew Jackson redefined the presidency and James K. Polk expanded the nation's territory. Bancroft Prize-winning historian and literary critic David S. Reynolds captures the turbulence of a democracy caught in the throes the controversy over slavery, the rise of capitalism, and the birth of urbanization. He brings to life the reformers, abolitionists, and temperance advocates who strug…