Book Review: Rob Williams on Sherman et al.'s Freedom and Unity

For anyone wishing to understand the promise of a unique place like Vermont, a new and comprehensive account of the Green Mountain State's past is a useful starting place. Michael Sherman, Gene Sessions, and P. Jeffrey Potash's book Freedom and Unity: A History of Vermont offers the traveler a remarkable look at how the Green Mountain State came to be. Don't let the 700 pages intimidate. The book gracefully runs the reader through a comprehensive history of our little section of the globe—a welcome addition to any historian or Vermontophile's library.

After examining and dismissing a number of thematic organizing possibilities in the book's introduction—Vermont's quasi-mythical founding (embodied by Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys); Frederick Jackson Turner's “frontier thesis” (which implicitly isolates Vermont as a regional backwater); the “Vermont is too small to make an impact” school of thought (too simplistic on its face); and Vermont “exceptionalism” (a popular view currently espoused by, among others, this newspaper's publishers); our intrepid historical trio settle on establishing a thematic framework that explores the historical and cultural tensions between the state of Vermont and the nation as a whole.

And who better to justify such a lens than the famous 19th-century Frenchman, traveler, and writer Alexis de Tocqueville, whom our authors quote early and often? “The great political principles which now rule American society were born and grew up in the state,” wrote de Tocqueville in his seminal1830s work Democracy In America, “so one must understand the state to gain the key to the rest.” In case this explanation doesn't satisfy, the book's introduction gives us the voice of Vermont's most outspoken secessionist (at least on even-numbered days). Frank Bryan argued for Vermont independence in 1990 in a series of statewide debates with John Dooley, but he switched sides for one of the public discussions and took the opposite position. “Vermont nationalism is a kind of orneriness and that's the best kind of nationalism,” observed a conflicted Bryan. “America needs us, because we are its conscience and its heart; we are its homeland.”

Bryan has remained on the fence about secession ever since, and 21st-century Vermonters remain torn on the question of Vermont independence in the context of U.S. Empire. Current supporters of Vermont independence are likely to be disappointed by this book, as the word “secession” is only used once (in the book's beginning). Meanwhile, the fascinating but relatively unexplored story of Vermont's life as an independent republic (1777–1791) goes missing, subsumed by a larger discussion of the various ways the American Revolution's “contagion of liberty” affected the ways in which Vermonters saw themselves—politically, economically, and culturally—in the context of an emerging United States. (No surprise; historical tomes often play to the center more than the periphery.)

That said, the book's authors have done an admirable job of providing a readable account of Vermont's four centuries of evolution, from “the lure of the land” that marked revolutionary-era struggles; to the “reconfiguration” of Vermont with the coming of the national industrial economy, the railroad, and other epochal changes; to the 20th-century tensions that have altered the Green Mountain landscape: flood, depression, war, the interstate highway system, and population boomlets. Accessible writing, as well as a wide variety of maps, paintings, and photographs, make the book an engaging read throughout.

And what of Vermont's future? While historians sometimes fancy themselves prophets, our three writers are understandably more cautious about reading the tea leaves. “Part of the experience of Vermont at the turn of the twenty-first century is the continuing and difficult balancing act going on throughout the state between responding to the needs and opportunities of large-scale modern economic development and commerce, mass culture, and mass politics, and making commitments to preserve and nurture small-scale economic, social, and political life,” they conclude. “Through these choices Vermonters continue to explore what it means to be and act as an individual and a citizen in the contemporary world.”

And, of course, determining Vermont's future is not the job of the historian, or the “expert,” or the traveler, French or otherwise. It is the collective work of all of us who live and love Vermont, and are privileged enough to call this unique and special place our home.