For many Americans, Vermont still seems what the United States at least in myth once was--a bucolic landscape of wooded hills, neat farms, and handsome villages--before modern forces transformed our agrarian nation into an urban-industrial giant.

Vermont. . . Who Knew? is a nonfiction travel book, including both serious and humorous content. It comprises nine chapters--one with a state-wide focus and eight regional chapters. The result: 125 or so profiles, essays, and anecdotes encompassing the most unique people, places, and events--both past and present--the Green Mountain State has to offer. The product is a perfect-bound, 6.14" x 9.21", 256-page book ( 65, 000 words), in color and including 75 photos and nine full-page chapter-opener maps. The Foreword was written by U. S. Senator Bernie Sanders. Wilson McLeran, Inc. is the publisher.

One unique feature: Roughly 70 percent of the entries are followed by references to one or more short YouTube videos, providing additional--and often dramatic--sight-and-sound coverage based on the topics immediately preceding. No URLs are necessary. Videos are accessed with a single click after the three- or four-word citation title is entered into the YouTube search box. Pairing the book's words with a PC or mobile device, then, transforms Vermont. . . Who Knew? from merely a good read to an unforgettable multimedia experience!

Another feature: For families with time constraints of one kind or another, a single back-of-the-book appendix serves as a two-dimensional global positioning system. Locations for many of the book's entries are on four well-traveled Vermont roads (two east-west and two north-south)--all within ten miles of any one of the highways. Based on preferences, this offers an opportunity to easily organize one- or two-day itineraries.

A lavishly illustrated study of the natural and cultural history of the Vermont landscape.

In this book Jan Albers examines the history―natural, environmental, social, and ultimately human―of one of America's most cherished landscapes: Vermont. Albers shows how Vermont has come to stand for the ideal of unspoiled rural community, examining both the basis of the state's pastoral image and the equally real toll taken by the pressure of human hands on the land. She begins with the relatively light touch of Vermont's Native Americans, then shows how European settlers―armed with a conviction that their claim to the land was "a God-given right"―shaped the landscape both to meet economic needs and to satisfy philosophical beliefs. The often turbulent result: a conflict between practical requirements and romantic ideals that has persisted to this day. Making lively use of contemporary accounts, advertisements, maps, landscape paintings, and vintage photographs, Albers delves into the stories and personalities behind the development of a succession of Vermont landscapes. She observes the growth of communities from tiny settlements to picturesque villages to bustling cities; traces the development of agriculture, forestry, mining, industry, and the influence of burgeoning technology; and proceeds to the growth of environmental consciousness, aided by both private initiative and governmental regulation. She reveals how as community strengthens, so does responsible stewardship of the land. Albers shows that like any landscape, the Vermont landscape reflects the human decisions that have been made about it―and that the more a community understands about how such decisions have been made, the better will be its future decisions.