| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.3

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 282 words from this article are provided below; about 519 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, 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. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• 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 American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
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 American Historical Review, 108.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Andrew R. L. Cayton. Ohio: The History of a People. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. 2002. Pp. vii, 472. $35.00.

Andrew R. L. Cayton has written this history of Ohio in honor of the state's 2003 bicentennial. To classify the book as purely commemorative, however, would be a great injustice; it has at least two other aims. First, as a traditional monograph, the book advances a thesis about the character of the state or, more specifically, of its people. In addition, like any good work of local history, it uses the history of a place as a lens for viewing two centuries of American history. 1

Cayton's first task—somehow to sum up what is specifically "Ohio"—is the more difficult of the two. He proposes a thesis that will allow him to cover 200 years of a large and diverse state. As its theme, the book focuses on the desires of early Ohioans to do good and to make a difference, as well as the shift over time to a more "conservative desire to live well" (p. vii). Cayton places this shift in Ohio life at around 1920, suggesting that by that decade the state's population had given up on the idea of change and begun to settle for something tremendously "average." By the final chapter, with its sections on Kent State University and the political crises of Ohio in the 1960s and 1970s, he seems to bemoan Ohio's unfulfilled promise. He concludes with a discussion of Pete Rose, using him not only as a famous Ohioan but also as an emblem of modern life in Ohio with all its faults and foibles. . . .

There are about 519 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.