Now come two venerable historians with yet another …

Now come two venerable historians with yet another portrait – not just of the man in all his complexity, but of his evolving, grandiose reputation and how it served the purposes of the writers, their society, and the state that became invested in a conflation of history and legend.Inventing Ethan Allen, by John J. Duffy and Nicholas Muller III, published by the University of New England, takes a hard look at what is known about Ethan Allen, from the documentary record, and what was written speculatively about him. Ultimately, they argue, it was a 19th-century “confection” that elevated him to heroic, bigger-than-life status and that helped make him the namesake of everything from a furniture company to a think tank.