| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.5

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 274 words from this article are provided below; about 593 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, 108.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

S. E. Wilmer. Theatre, Society and the Nation: Staging American Identities. (Cambridge Studies in American Theatre and Drama, number 15.) New York: Cambridge University Press. 2002. Pp. vii, 281. $60.00.
S. E. Wilmer's book details the role of theater in determining America's values and the concept of America as an idea. Employing a wide berth of examples from plays, productions, and rituals, the author maintains that American theater, from the late eighteenth century to the present, was an essential component in the diversification of American culture.	1
Chapter one focuses on early American dramas intended either to support British loyalties or to encourage those eager to escape colonialism. According to Wilmer, the plays of Mercy Otis Warren, a key figure during the American Revolution, were satiric attacks directed against British rule. In chapter two, he examines early American dramas that contributed to the formation of American political identity. According to Wilmer, late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century plays were integral to the emerging debates over federalism versus states rights. Although during the 1790s, American dramatists wrote plays that unidimensionally extolled the virtues of their compatriots during the Revolutionary War, some playwrights—in particular William Dunlap and John Burk—wrote partisan dramas that advanced a wide array of political viewpoints. Chapter three examines Native American traditions, especially the Lakota Ghost Dance. Wilmer observes that the Ghost Dance "reconfigured the nation, but from a Lakota perspective and in a Lakota idiom" (p. 81). By the late nineteenth century, the Lakota Ghost Dance had developed into a ritual designed to preserve Native traditions threatened by white settlers' westward expansion.	. . .

There are about 593 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.