"Simultaneously nostalgic and up-to-the-minute. Bryan’s book arrives as interest in local civic capital and ’deliberate democracy’—as contrasted with the old-fashioned adversarial style—is surging."

Christopher Shea | Boston Globe

"And now the irrepressible Bryan has made a major contribution to his field (and his country, which is Vermont) with Real Democracy, his magnum opus, the most searching and sympathetic book ever written about the town meeting democracy of New England. The book is a veritable four-leaf clover of academia: a witty work of political science written from a defiantly rural populist point of view. If the Green Mountains had a face, it would be Frank Bryan. With Real Democracy, he has given his state, and us outlanders as well, the most detailed and affectionate portrait of a town meeting, which is, as Bryan says, ’where you learn to be a good citizen’."

Bill Kauffman | The American Conservative

"[Bryan] writes tellingly and thoroughly about Vermont’s 210 annual town meetings over three decades . . . Bryan employs many of the sophisticated methodologies of political science to demonstrate that the New England town meeting is not merely a traditional method by which early Americans governed themselves. It still works well. . . . Obviously, New England can’t be transferred to Iraq and Afghanistan, but its lessons are still relevant."

Robert I. Rothberg | Christian Science Monitor

"’At a New England town meeting,’ Bryan proclaims, ’[Adolf Hitler] would have at once been recognized as a flaming jackass and subtly ostracized into impotence.’ The serious point buried in his exuberant hyperbole is the lesson at the heart of this immensely readable and valuable book."

Yankee Magazine