
Ethan Allen
His Life and Times
Willard Sterne Randall(Author)
WW Norton & Co (Publisher)
Published on 2. September 2011
Book
Hardback
640 pages
978-0-393-07665-3 (ISBN)
Description
On May 10, 1775, in the storm-tossed hours after midnight, Ethan Allen, the Revolutionary firebrand, was poised for attack. With only two boatloads of his scraggly band of Vermont volunteers having made it across the wind-whipped waters of Lake Champlain, he was waiting for the rest of his Green Mountain boys to arrive. But with the protective darkness quickly fading, Allen determined that he hold off no longer.
While Ethan Allen, a canonical hero of the American Revolution, has always been defined by his daring, predawn attack on the British-controlled Fort Ticonderoga, Willard Sterne Randall, the author of Benedict Arnold, now challenges our conventional understanding of this largely unexamined Founding Father. Widening the scope of his inquiry beyond the Revolutionary War, Randall traces Allen's beginning back to his modest origins in Connecticut, where he was born in 1738. Largely self-educated, emerging from a relatively impoverished background, Allen demonstrated his deeply rebellious nature early on through his attraction to Deism, his dramatic defense of smallpox vaccinations, and his early support of separation of church and state.
Chronicling Allen's upward struggle from precocious, if not unruly, adolescent to commander of the largest American paramilitary force on the eve of the Revolution, Randall unlocks a trove of new source material, particularly evident in his gripping portrait of Allen as a British prisoner-of-war. While the biography reacquaints readers with the familiar details of Allen's life-his capture during the aborted American invasion of Canada, his philosophical works that influenced Thomas Paine, his seminal role in gaining Vermont statehood, his stirring funeral in 1789-Randall documents that so much of what we know of Allen is mere myth, historical folklore that people have handed down, as if Allen were Paul Bunyan.
As Randall reveals, Ethan Allen, a so-called Robin Hood in the eyes of his dispossessed Green Mountain settlers, aggrandized, and unabashedly so, the holdings of his own family, a fact that is glossed over in previous accounts, embellishing his own best-selling prisoner-of-war narrative as well. He emerges not only as a public-spirited leader but as a self-interested individual, often no less rapacious than his archenemies, the New York land barons of the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys.
As John E. Ferling comments, "Randall has stripped away the myths to provide as accurate an account of Allen's life as will ever be written." The keen insights that he produces shed new light, not only on this most enigmatic of Founding Fathers, but on today's descendants of the Green Mountain Boys, whose own political disenfranchisement resonates now more than ever.
While Ethan Allen, a canonical hero of the American Revolution, has always been defined by his daring, predawn attack on the British-controlled Fort Ticonderoga, Willard Sterne Randall, the author of Benedict Arnold, now challenges our conventional understanding of this largely unexamined Founding Father. Widening the scope of his inquiry beyond the Revolutionary War, Randall traces Allen's beginning back to his modest origins in Connecticut, where he was born in 1738. Largely self-educated, emerging from a relatively impoverished background, Allen demonstrated his deeply rebellious nature early on through his attraction to Deism, his dramatic defense of smallpox vaccinations, and his early support of separation of church and state.
Chronicling Allen's upward struggle from precocious, if not unruly, adolescent to commander of the largest American paramilitary force on the eve of the Revolution, Randall unlocks a trove of new source material, particularly evident in his gripping portrait of Allen as a British prisoner-of-war. While the biography reacquaints readers with the familiar details of Allen's life-his capture during the aborted American invasion of Canada, his philosophical works that influenced Thomas Paine, his seminal role in gaining Vermont statehood, his stirring funeral in 1789-Randall documents that so much of what we know of Allen is mere myth, historical folklore that people have handed down, as if Allen were Paul Bunyan.
As Randall reveals, Ethan Allen, a so-called Robin Hood in the eyes of his dispossessed Green Mountain settlers, aggrandized, and unabashedly so, the holdings of his own family, a fact that is glossed over in previous accounts, embellishing his own best-selling prisoner-of-war narrative as well. He emerges not only as a public-spirited leader but as a self-interested individual, often no less rapacious than his archenemies, the New York land barons of the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys.
As John E. Ferling comments, "Randall has stripped away the myths to provide as accurate an account of Allen's life as will ever be written." The keen insights that he produces shed new light, not only on this most enigmatic of Founding Fathers, but on today's descendants of the Green Mountain Boys, whose own political disenfranchisement resonates now more than ever.
Reviews / Votes
"Starred Review. The definitive biography of the frontier hero and founder of Vermont....Authoritative, vivid.... Colorful, well-written and nuanced." -- Kirkus Reviews "This is the first biography of Ethan Allen in half a century, and the only one to render him a psychologically complicated, fully flawed hero of the American Revolution." -- Joseph J. Ellis, author of Founding Brothers and American Sphinx "Willard Sterne Randall has few equals as a writer. A careful and meticulous historian, and an esteemed biographer, Randall has marshaled his many talents to produce the definite biography of Ethan Allen, one of the most fascinating figures in the founding of the American nation.... a must read." -- John Ferling, author of Independence "This is the powerful story about an essential and little-understood figure in American history. Willard Randall writes with grace and insight, and Ethan Allen is an engaging biography." -- Jon Meacham, author of American LionMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Product notice
Rough front
Illustrations
16 pages of illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 244 mm
Width: 168 mm
Thickness: 43 mm
Weight
1057 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-393-07665-3 (9780393076653)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
08/2011
W. W. Norton & Company
€17.49
Available for download
Person
Willard Sterne Randall is the author of Ethan Allen: His Life and Times and Benedict Arnold: Patriot and Traitor. A finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Randall is a professor of history at Champlain College and lives in Burlington, Vermont.