"Ethan Allen, Vermont's Founding Father?"

Presented by Willard Sterne Randall, Distinguished Scholar in History and Professor Emeritus, Champlain College.

Always controversial, Ethan Allen still inspires lively debate over his importance to the founding of the Fourteenth State. Was he a brawling, land-hungry drunkard or a persistent effective force in breaking away the Green Mountains from the grips of New York oligarchs? Just how should we think of the man who captured a British fort, languished in an English dungeon and ended his days in a modest farmhouse in Burlington's intervale?

Willard Sterne Randall is the Distinguished Scholar in History and Professor Emeritus at Champlain College. He is the author of thirteen books, including six Founding Father biographies. His Benedict Arnold, Patriot and Traitor, was a Notable Book of the New York Times. His George Washington, A Life was selected for Reader’s Digest’s volume, World’s Greatest Biographies. His A Little Revenge: Benjamin Franklin and His Son and Alexander Hamilton, A Life both contributed to PBS American Experience series. Ethan Allen, His Life and Times, was the featured selection of the History Book Club.