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BOOK REVIEWS FALL 2009 79 ethnographies, but no secondary sources published later than 1964. Since The Shawnee is a reprint of a volume originally published in 1993, one would not expect to see citations of recent historical scholarship on the Shawnee by John Sugden, Colin Calloway, and Stephen Warren. However, the essay also makes no mention of James Howard’s 1981 ethnography Shawnee!, of R. David Edmunds’s biographies of Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa, or of Richard White’s monumental 1991 history of The Middle Ground. These books would have enriched Clark’s treatment of, for example, the Shawnees’ five socio-political divisions (Chillicothe, Hathawekela, Kispogogi, Mequachake or Mekoche, and Piqua), and their growing dependence on the European fur trade. These shortcomings aside, The Shawnee remains a thoughtful and engaging study of early Shawnee migration and social organization. It should prove particularly useful for those wishing a short introduction to seventeenth and eighteenth-century Shawnee history, or to that nation’s relationship with the region now known as Kentucky. David A. Nichols Indiana State University T he great nineteenth-century American public works projects have long stood as integral historical footprints illustrating the spirit of American ingenuity and ambition. From the early economic history of Carter Goodrich to John Lauritz Larson’s more recent examination of the role of the improvement era in the growth of American nationalism, the transformative role of internal improvements continues to earn scholarly scrutiny. Public works projects connected markets and aided national economic development, but they also presented new obstacles for individuals and communities, challenged previous business practices, and helped redefine the roles of state and federal governments. In Triumph at the Falls: The Louisville and Portland Canal, Leland R. Johnson and Charles Parish undertake the ambitious goal of conveying the engineering triumphs that enabled navigation Triumph at the Falls: The Louisville and Portland Canal Leland R. Johnson and Charles Parish BOOK REVIEWS 80 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY around the falls of the Ohio River. The book addresses a significant event in American history. Through these technological triumphs, the canal became an important cornerstone in shaping development and commerce in the Ohio Valley. Johnson and Parish demonstrate great methodological agility in extracting the long and often complex history of the canal from various sources, including newspapers, governmental reports, congressional documents, manuscripts, and state and local histories . Their research results in an impressive and comprehensive history of the canal. The authors begin with a geological discussion of the creation of the falls and proceed with an examination of the canal’s first engineering phase as its promoters planned an unencumbered passage past the geological formation. Although an early booming portage industry serving the falls aided the growth of Louisville, the advent of steam navigation and the expansion of commercial transportation dependant on the Ohio River established a true need for a water passage and marked the second engineering phase. The effort to meet current and future needs through the expansion of the canal while struggling to secure the necessary economic resources resulted in the transition from privately held canal to federal ownership. The final transfer of company stock to the United States placed the canal under the control of the Army Corps of Engineers. By 1921, the canal entered into the third engineering phase. Increasing towboat-barge traffic forced further expansion of the canal and its integration , as Lock No. 41, into a larger canalization program which the Army Corps of Engineers planned for the management of the entire Ohio River. Once integrated into a river-long canal, Lock 41 underwent its fourth engineering phase: A modernization program that doubled the size of the locks from six to twelve hundred feet and renamed it the McAlpine lock. At the turn of this century, the fifth engineering phase promises to redouble Leland R. Johnson and Charles Parish. Triumph at the Falls:The Louisville and Portland Canal. Louisville: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , 2007. 352 pp. No ISBN (paper), gpb., free upon request to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville District. BOOK REVIEWS FALL 2009 81 the lock’s capacity to serve the next fifty years of Ohio River commerce and navigation needs. The value of Johnson and...

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