“Golf is a good walk spoiled” is an observation attributed to but apparently not uttered by Mark Twain. Aside from a good walk, a similar effect of something being spoiled is felt when you finish reading a great book about the history of Ohio and then read a jarring quote in a newspaper article, a word choice frequently used to demean one of the state’s treasured assets.

That’s the feeling I had when I completed David McCullough’s latest book, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West and then read an article […]