Customer Reviews

Revolutionary Outlaws: Ethan Allen and the Struggle for Independence on the Early American Frontier

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Yes, my name really is Ethan Allen. This is an excellently researched and well documented account about a very little known chapter of the American Revolution. The book is the story of Vermont's struggle for statehood. It explores the economic, social, and political pressures that led Vermonters to create their own government in spite of threats from Enland, New York, and Continental Congress. This book is a good study of how government derives its power from the people. The reading is a little slow at times, but good history often is, and this is more than worth the effort.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in 18th century American history. It deals with a light hand with complex issues of both economic, political and religious history. It is also very cogently argued and entertaining.
Great stuff.

I suppose there are only two reasons that a person would write a biography, either to unduly idolize a person or tear them down. This author writes for the first reason. Writing a historical biography with bias can be forgiven, provided that the bias exists in the context or the moralizing historians can't stop themselves from doing, and stays out of the raw facts. This book is unforgivable because the author cherry-picks, misrepresents, leaves out, or plain changes the facts in order to support his case that Ethan Allen was a rebellious yet upstanding military leader and statesman akin to George Washington.

His military bungling which led even his Green Mountain Boys to forsake him are described as a string of great achievements with phrases like, "With another military victory under his belt...". His greedy, swindling, land-jobbing is portrayed as an upright business. He is referred to constantly as "General Allen" even though it was only in his own mind that he was a general of anything.

The worst of it is the way the author tries to gloss completely over his traitorous dealings with the british during the Revolutionary War, only mentioning this very important episode a couple of times, and going into no detail other than to say that Ethan Allen was only trying to fool the british into not attacking, which the author claims he did successfully, without mentioning the raids on Barnard, Royalton, and numerous other Vermont towns.

If you want to hear the story of Jedediah Springfield, watch The Simpson's...If you want real history, read something else...Either way, this book is worse than a complete waste of time.

well it had a lot of writing and underling...more than i have ever seen.

i will never again buy a book with that much writing..in it.

I am so so satified...

After the fraud Belleisles perpetuated in his Arming America book, I must confess that I read Revolutionary Outlaws with a more than sceptical eye. It is well written, but I find myself wondering if I can trust this author again.