David S. Reynolds provides a broad survey of the USA between 1815 and 1848, refereed as "Age of Jackson". America experienced unprecedented expansion and turmoil in the years between 1815 and 1848. This was also a time when America increasingly established itself on the world stage as immigrants from Europe came in huge numbers and the countries population almost tripled. "Waking Giant" tries to explain the ups and downs of a democracy caught in the throes of the controversy over slavery, the rise of capitalism, and the birth of urban explosion. Clashes between abolitionists and slave-owners that would soon thereafter erupt into the Civil War.

Impact of Jackson era in building the foundations of today's America and its impact on industry, banking, inventions and American-beliefs has been detailed very well. Reynolds wrestles with art, religion, philosophy, literature and the theater of the day, which help to characterize the distinctively emerging individualist and outspoken American spirit.