RESTLESS SPIRITS AND POPULAR MOVEMENTS

A veteran journalist from Vermont surveys the state’s history through the lens of social movements in this nonfiction book.

As a community organizer, newspaper editor, and journalist in Vermont since the late 1960s, Guma has long monitored the pulse of the people and movements that have shaped the Green Mountain State. In this history of Vermont’s popular movements, he seeks to “revisit Vermont’s past with fresh eyes” and to “reclaim stories lost, distorted or buried along the way.” While analyzing the progressive forces and nonpartisan independence that gave rise to Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, the book is also careful to highlight Vermont’s “blind spots and dark corners,” noting, for instance, that no woman has ever represented the state in Washington, D.C. Divided into three parts that chronologically trace Vermont’s history, the volume focuses on the 18th and 19th centuries in the first section, juxtaposing the state’s progressive credentials (it was, for example, the first colony to ban slavery during the American Revolution) with its record of violence toward Indigenous people and close relationship with the racist eugenics movement. Part 2 looks at the early 20th century and the role of localism and fierce independence that gave rise to the nonpartisan progressive election of James Burke as the long-standing mayor of Burlington. Even Vermont’s conservative establishment often bucked its national party, such as the state’s stalwart Republican United States Sen. Ralph Flanders, who joined Democrats in denouncing Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. The book’s final section centers on movements since World War II, with a particularly strong dissection of the rise of Howard Dean and Sanders as two of the country’s most progressive voices. The volume combines the engaging, fast-paced writing style of a seasoned journalist with the craft of a skilled historian who has full command of historiographical trends and archival sources. Guma’s accessible yet expert prose is accompanied by ample historical photographs, newspaper clippings, and maps. Though occasional tangents distract from its narrative timeline, this work delivers a definitive examination of how average people in one of the nation’s smallest states have influenced and continued to shape American history.

A well-written and nuanced history of Vermont’s social movements.