Each Vermont country store carries its own particular stock of special wares and memorable characters. From the Connecticut River to Lake Champlain, country stores and their dedicated owners offer warmth against the blizzard, advice and a friendly ear or a stern word. Neighbors meet and communities are forged beside these feed barrels and bottomless coffee urns. Author Dennis Bathory-Kitsz returns once again to the Green Mountain State with this updated and revised history and guide to its beloved country stores. When Hurricane Irene threatened many of these local institutions and communities in 2011, Vermonters came together, often at their country stores. Explore the very heart of communities big and small, where locals have been keeping their house keys behind the counter and solving the world's problems on the front stoop for more than two hundred years.

Literary works, through their very personal means of characterization, reveal the direct effect of politics on individuals in a way a political treatise cannot. The distinguished contributors to this volume share the belief that Shakespeare is the author who most effectively sets forth the multifarious pageant of politics. Shakespeare's rich canon presents monarchy and republic, tyrant and king, thinker and soldier, and Christian and pagan. The twelve essays in Shakespeare's Political Pageant discuss a broad range of Shakespeare's dramatic poetry from the perspective of the political theorist. This innovative book demonstrates the immense value of seeing Shakespeare's plays in the context of political philosophy. It will be an important source for students and scholars of both political science and literature.