| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.2

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 133 words from this article are provided below; about 358 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Toothpick: Technology and Culture. By Henry Petroski. (New York: Knopf, 2007. xii, 443 pp. $27.95, ISBN 978-0-307-26636-1.)

There is no historian who has done more than Henry Petroski to educate us in the usefulness of studying small things. In a myriad of studies dealing with everything from paper clips to zippers he has shed light on the history of design, the dynamics of engineering, and the contingencies and circumstances that shape the objects of our everyday world. In his work on the pencil (The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance, 1990) he demonstrated how an extended study of an apparently simple object could be used as a vehicle for showing how objects change over time and, more importantly, how our relationships with these objects change.

. . .

There are about 358 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.