State of War?  Book review: Two Vermonts  One of the cultural
markers of our state is that we keep debating, fretting and
sometimes snarling over who is a "real Vermonter." It's strange
when you think about it -- people in Massachusetts never worry
over who is a real Bay Stater, and as far as I know there are no
admission requirements for New Hampshire or Rhode Island. But
the real-Vermonter debate seems to get reactivated each time
some difficult or divisive issue is on the table -- civil
unions, the Australian ballot, Act 250. Even the mock 1998
senatorial candidacy of Fred Tuttle came down to a legitimacy
claim.  The debate runs the gamut from the sublime to the
ridiculous, but its underpinnings have always been hard to
analyze. A new book by Paul Searls, Two Vermonts: Geography and
Identity, 1865-1910, locates convincingly where and how the who-
is-a-Vermonter conversation got started -- and, perhaps more
importantly, why it matters. In this dense but interesting
offering, Searls outlines the social, econo