Vidal, Gore

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Outstanding, relevant and necessary
Gore Vidal, United States
Master Essayist At Work
Gleefully malicious
Mencken and Paine would applaud

United States: Essays 1952-1992
Gore Vidal
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0679414894
Release Date: 1993-05-18

Book Description

From the age of Eisenhower to the dawning of the Clinton era, Gore Vidal’s United States offers an incomparably rich tapestry of American intellectual and political life in a tumultuous period. It also provides the best, most sustained exposure possible to the most wide-ranging, acute, and original literary intelligence of the post—World War II years. United States is an essential book in the canon of twentieth-century American literature and an endlessly fascinating work.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Customer Reviews:

Outstanding, relevant and necessary.......2005-04-20

These particular selections of essays by the prolific and most caustic critics of the American Republic, has sat on my bookshelf since the early months of 1999. Included in this overwhelming collection are 114 essays, in some cases, randomly categorized into three chapters - State of Art, State of the Union and State of Being. Vidal is an intensely knowledgeable fellow, and therefore has an opinion on just about everything having to do with art, history, politics, the state of literature and his beloved Republic To attempt to read this entire tome (1271 pages) from start to finish over a few weeks (my original intention) proved to be impossible. Although informative and extremely entertaining, there was just too much to digest, too important to scan through, thus I would mark the essays read with a tick on the contents page, place the book back on the shelf, only to return when the time felt right to take them up again.

Vidal is not only a great historian, he is also one of America's great literary radicals. He was experimenting with the literary form, attempting to apply critical theory to the Novel very early in the piece with such works as Duluth, Mira Breckinridge and the post modern religious satire, Live from Golgotha. These were indeed "radical" departures from the standard fare of American novels coming out at the time. In mainstream circles, however, these novels were not well received, but were critically acclaimed, calling them subversive, iconoclastic, original and extremely funny.

As an essayist, Vidal really has no match in American letters. These essays reveal a master at the top of their form. What is interesting as well as admirable, Vidal was criticising literary theory which had infiltrated academia in the late 60's and early 70's, al la, post structuralism and deconstructionism, but unlike the so-called "experts" in the university's across the western world, (he calls them "Hacks of Academia") Vidal attempted to put these theories to the test in the form of a popular novel, (Duluth) and succeeded. In his essay, "French Letters -Theories of the Modern Novel", Vidal attacks these modern theorists, who state that language and literature as an art form is dead, in elegant prose and biting gusto, revealing their empty (headed) arguments,

"In any case, rather like priests who have forgotten the meaning of the prayer they chant, we shall go on for quite as long time talking of books and writing books, pretending all the while not to notice that the church is empty and the parishioners have gone elsewhere to attend other gods, perhaps with silence or with new words." (1967, p.110)

In "The State of the Union" essays, Vidal expounds upon American politics and his views on the National Security Council, the CIA and America's on-going imperialistic intentions, which interestingly, have not dated in the least. Most of these essays are as relevant as ever despite the passing of over thirty years.

There is no doubt in my mind that reading Vidal is an education, showing us a way through the miasma of received wisdom, relentlessly thrown in our direction. In many respects Vidal is a beacon of light during dark times, a writer that has never pulled any punches when it came to the things he believed in, namely writing, politics and his beloved Republic. This book should be standard issue for anyone interested in literature, politics, art, and American history.

Gore Vidal, United States.......2004-11-08

First, for those readers solely interested in the quality of this essay collection, my advice is simple. If you enjoy the essay form, buy this collection! There is no better essayist alive. In the USA, Vidal stands beside Emerson, White and Trilling in exemplifying the power of the essay; and like them, his greatest quality is the intense, lasting relevancy of his argument, even when he deals with people or events long past. His vilification of Truman, for example, concentrates on the latter's founding the American security state, certainly a germane issue.

As for all this talk of Vidal's political affiliation, anyone who claims he is a conservative or a liberal in any normal sense of these words is simply wrong, and is unfortunately missing the purpose of Vidal's writing. Vidal firmly believes in the people and the ideals by which our nation was founded; but he is alone, as far as I know, in keeping himself free of worship. Jefferson, Adams, etc. were not perfect; and neither is democracy or republicanism. In our intensely polarized time, in which unthinking loyalty is a virtue, Vidal is exactly that type which he has often cheered throughout history, the brave heretic. Gore Vidal is our Orwell; his opinions may only occasionally be right, but anyone who ignores him is jeopardizing our relationship with the truth.

In addition to this collection, I also highly recommend *the last empire*, Vidal's collection of essays from 1992 to 2000. It is much shorted, and is actually a better introduction to the author.

Master Essayist At Work.......2004-01-25

United States, the 1993 Winner of the National Book Award, it covers the years from 1952 until 1992. This book shows that Vidal is an authority/reliable source in many areas. He served in WWII and wrote his first novel while doing so. He comes form a political background; his grandfather, blind Senator T.P. Gore, brought him up. He is related to Eleanor Roosevelt and was friendly with JFK. He ran for Congress in New York in 1960 and came in second in the California democratic primary in 1982. Furthermore, his father served as director of the Bureau of Air Commerce under FDR, which gave him insight into the forming of airlines and access to Charles Lindberg. He wrote his first novel at the age of 20 and has subsequently written 23 other novels, most of them historical novels in which he did significant research to get the details just right. He has numerous interesting insights into the lives of other writers as well as being capable of writing compelling book chat. He has also written for TV and the movies, as a result knows a lot of famous Hollywood movers and shakers. His heroes (John Quincy Adams, FDR, Abraham Lincoln, Paul Bowles, Edmund Wilson, Charles Lindberg) and villains (Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, the CIA) are vividly drawn and expertly judged throughout.

I am hesitant to recommend this tome that weighs in at 1295 pages and is the size of a reference book, but does seem all but indispensable, because it has many excellent and interesting essays. It is divided into three sections: state of the art (literature), state of the union (politics), and state of being (personal responses to people and events, not to mention movies and children's books). Not a light book to take on the train, this tome took me the better part of a year to finish, but was well worth it.

Gleefully malicious.......2003-01-29

Gore Vidal possesses an immense erudition and a willingness to inflict it on anyone and everyone who doesn't measure up to his standards, with tremendously entertaining results. He is a pedant and a nitpicker who will not let be even the smallest things, and I would hate to be subjected to his merciless eye, but it's great to read about the people who have been.

I bought the book for its first section, which consists of essays on literary matters (quite a few of them concerning people of whom I had never heard before -- some of whom I have now started reading just because of the essays), figuring that I could at worst skip the politics (the idea of which bored me) and still have quite a collection of essays in my hands. As it turned out, though, once I had made my way through that section I was so hooked on Vidal's drily contemptuous writing that I couldn't help continuing. I'm glad I read on, because his views (many of them bolstered by first-hand experience with the issues about which he's writing) and ability clearly and convincingly to expound them are amazing. He has really changed my ideas about a few issues. (There are also a few issues on which I think he can say nothing but educated nonsense, but I didn't read the book to have my own opinions parroted back at me.) The essays are fascinating, educating and entertaining, and the collection is superb -- trumping (in quantity and quality) just about any other book of his essays available. The ``sequel'' to this collection, Last Empire, can be a bit repetitive and shrilly alarmist, but this one is fresh and insightful throughout (perhaps because he's talking about events from which I feel sufficiently detached to be open-minded?).

The only slight complaint I have is that Vidal, in the middle of his complaints about the style and spelling problems of others, has some stingers of his own. (One of the most glaring is that he likes to set off parenthetical notes for example this one, with only a final comma.) I'd try to ignore this in an ordinary writer (should I say mere mortal?), but with someone who so clearly values pedantry and precision it is extremely jarring.

Mencken and Paine would applaud.......2002-05-12

This is a great compilation of 40 years of insight into what really drives the republic: from the cult for the Kennedys, the Ron and Nancy show in pictures, the militancy of the Sky God people and the hypocritical sexual mores Vidal leaves no sacred cow unslaughtered and goes to the marrow of our most cherished myths. Unabashedly polemic and magisterial in his distain he proves that thinking critical and pushing the state sponsored purveyors of preciousness out of their well cottoned and financed closets is the best revenge. May he continue on to take the pulse of lazy thinkers everywhere and pronounce them comatose.

Average customer rating:

A Great American Gathers Up Personal Loose Ends
Among the last of a dying breed
Vidal - The Tin Man who never got to the Wizard
The Noblest Roman of Them All
Don't Stop Writing...Every minute is fascinating

Point to Point Navigation: A Memoir
Gore Vidal
Manufacturer: Doubleday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0385517211
Release Date: 2006-11-07

Book Description

The brilliant sequel to Gore Vidal’ s acclaimed, bestselling memoir, Palimpsest.

In Point to Point Navigation, the celebrated novelist, essayist, critic, and controversialist Gore Vidal ranges freely over his remarkable life with the signature wit and literary elegance that is uniquely his. The title refers to a form of navigation he resorted to as a first mate in the Navy during World War II. As he says, “As I was writing this account of my life and times since Palimpsest, I felt as if I were again dealing with those capes and rocks in the Bering Sea that we had to navigate so often with a compass made inoperable by weather.” It is a beautifully apt analogy for the hazards (mostly) eluded during his eventful life and for the way this memoir proceeds—far from linear but always on course.

From his desks in Ravello and the Hollywood Hills, Gore Vidal travels in memory through the arenas of literature, television, film, theater, politics and international society where he has cut a broad swath, recounting achievements and defeats, friends and enemies made (and on a number of occasions lost). Among the gathering of notables to be found in these pages, sketched with a draftsman’s ease and evoked with the panache of one of our great raconteurs, are Jack and Jacqueline Kennedy, Tennessee Williams (the “Glorious Bird”), Eleanor Roosevelt, Orson Welles, Johnny Carson, Greta Garbo, Federico Fellini, Rudolph Nureyev, Elia Kazan, and Francis Ford Coppola. Some of the book’s most moving pages are devoted to the illness and death of his partner of five decades, Howard Austen, and indeed the book is, among other things, a meditation on mortality written in the spirit of Montaigne.

Elegiac yet vital and even ornery, Point to Point Navigation is a summing-up of Gore Vidal’s time on the planet that manages to be at once supremely entertaining, endlessly provocative, and thoroughly moving.

Customer Reviews:

A Great American Gathers Up Personal Loose Ends.......2007-06-15

Will try not to repeat what other reviewers have submitted here. This is a nice little book and not a bad introduction to a great mind, if you've never read any parts of his large body of work, fictional or historical.

I imagine that most first-time GV readers who get through this rich little book will become inspired by his style, dignity, and integrity, and will want to read more after they put this down. Which is great, because GV has given the world a number of fine books on American history, on society itself, and current events require more of us to get informed on what's really happening to democracy in the USA.

Every one of us should be so lucky as to have an opportunity at the end of our lives to set the personal record straight, as Gore Vidal does here. It's a nice collection of autobiographical sketches, insights on his career and friendships. Plenty of political insight and the thoughts of a man who has seen and researched a wealth of intriguing events.

If he hadn't used the navigation metaphor, the format of his final memoir would indeed appear totally random. But this book was his way of tying up a few loose ends, answering to a few niggling criticisms and lingering accusations. It was a good read, full of wit and class.

Among the last of a dying breed.......2007-04-17

PPN displays Vidal at his best: thoughtful, erudite, and -- in reflecting on the mortality of friends, family, and self -- quite affecting. If PPN betrays its author, at times, as curmudgeonly and possessed of a powerful ego, both the memoir and the memoirist are no less compelling for that betrayal. Vidal has lived an extraordinary life. He is a true public intellectual in an age of diminishing public intellect. Though I am a bigger fan of Vidal the essayist than I am of Vidal the memoirist, I very much enjoyed PPN -- and took special pleasure in hearing Vidal himself narrate the audio version of this book. Vidal tells (and speaks) his story with just the right mix of brio, humor, and pathos. Read his essays for his mind; read his memoirs for the man.

Vidal - The Tin Man who never got to the Wizard.......2007-04-10

Reading Gore Vidal is almost always a pleasant experience even when Vidal comes across as being far from a pleasant person. He is witty, incisive, learned, and intelligent. He is also bitchy, mean, stubbornly contrarian, arrogant, and wrongheaded to the point of looniness on many issues. He seems to have been around forever. Indeed, he has been writing and publishing during my entire fifty-one years of living. A handful of his novels still merit reading years after their release ( Julian, Burr, Myra Breckenridge, Creation - in my opinion). Many of his essays have stood the test of time for being models of excellent writing. His previous memoir, Palimpsest, was marred by inaccuracies of history, a mean spirit, endless name-dropping, and fawning over celebrities. It was still an enjoyable read. This one is marred by the lifting of several chapters from his previous books ("Screening History" becomes the basis for several of the first few chapters, for one thing. He excuses this by stating that the older book is out of print. That begs the question of why Vidal would inflict material on the public for the second time when there was little demand for it the first time.). It also is hurt by Vidal's profound contrariness. Johnny Carson, an amiable talk show host at best, is recast by Vidal as a political prophet who could predict the next president by the audience reaction to his jokes. Huey Long is "great." Vidal likes to play these sort of games - giving more credit where it is not due if someone happens to be a personal acquaintance of his and ripping anyone apart who dares to rise in the political or show business arena without his personal friendship and approval. His comments about Eleanor Roosevelt are gratuitously mean and cutting (only a cad would mention her bad teeth. What does Vidal think his ancient self looks like? Isn't there a mirror in his house?). His humiliation of romance novelist Barbara Cartland in these pages is nothing more than vicious and pointless cattiness (and Vidal has never stopped raking Truman Capote over the coals for HIS cattiness). Some of these anecdotes simply do not ring true, by the way. And some are more revealing than Vidal may have intended. Vidal had Greta Garbo over to his villa for a party in her honor. Garbo afterwards declined all further invitations to visit Vidal. Hmmmmmm. Perhaps she was sharp enough to sense that here was a creep who would eventually gossip about her bathroom habits (which he does here) ?
Vidal drops every name that is still in fashion, no matter how slender his acquaintance with them was. And if he never met them, he will find some absurdly distant genealogical connection to one of their ancestors (For example, Albert Gore absolutely denies any relation but Vidal gets around that very public denial by our former vice-president by mentioning that "someone" (we are never told who) once told him that they were distantly connected although Vidal can't quite remember what the person said. Sure, Gore. You can rest assured that if there really was a connection that Vidal would have remembered every excruciatingly labyrynthine genealogical detail and bored us with it.). Despite all of this, we read on because we have affection for Vidal in the same way that we might have affection for an ornery elder - no one takes him seriously after so many years and his crotchety conversation can be amusing in moderate, occasional doses.
The sections on the sickness and death of his longtime friend, Howard Auster are moving even when Vidal comes across as cold and incapable of feeling normal human emotion for his companion of fifty years. This reader wondered if Vidal was incapable of grief (and therefore a pathetic person) or if he was simply incapable of putting into words his grief (thereby making him an inarticulately tragic widow)? We may never know but the evidence weighs in on the former possibility.
This is good reading because Vidal is a good writer. Unfortunately, it also provides more evidence of the deficiencies of Vidal as a human being (as if we needed more). Being brilliant, learned, witty, rich, and able to drop the names of lots of famous people is not enough, Mr. Vidal. Having a heart and being able to share it generously is one of my criteria for being a successful human being. Vidal is the Tin Man who never made it to the Wizard of Oz for his heart. This memoir is the sound of empty echoing in that tin chest of his.

The Noblest Roman of Them All.......2007-04-05

I had an opportunity to visit with Gore Vidal when he was still living in Ravello, at the remarkable villa he describes in this memoir. Willa Shallit (Gene's daughter) had made a face mask of him, a gift from George Plimpton, and she asked me to deliver the finished product.

The drop-off of the mask turned into an entire morning, with Vidal speaking on a wide range of topics from Bill Clinton (then the new president) to Augustus Caesar (he said he always saw himself as a supporter of the Republic rather than the Empire) to Hollywood (he tried to get Charleton Heston to understand that he and Messala had been childhood sweethearts in Ben-Hur).

Vidal is a national, no a world, treasure. His wit is sharper than ever in this book. Bless his heart, may he live many more years and write many more books.

Don't Stop Writing...Every minute is fascinating.......2007-04-02

There is nothing one can say but "I loved it." No one can fail to succumb to the "blandishments" of Gore Vidal's life. I strongly recommend this memoir, which is a gathering up of the odds and ends of his fascinating life and opinions. Wisdom and satire and good sense are the positive aspects of this volume. Get it...fast!

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Simply the Best
Fantastic tale!
Unseemly Questions
Great book!
A journey that reveals but doesn't answer

Creation
Gore Vidal
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0394500156
Release Date: 1981-02-12

Amazon.com

In 445 B.C., Cyrus Spitama, the grandson of the prophet Zoroaster, is the Persian ambassador to the city of Athens. He has a rather caustic appreciation of his situation: "I am blind. But I am not deaf. Because of the incompleteness of my misfortune, I was obliged yesterday to listen for nearly six hours to a self-styled historian whose account of what the Athenians like to call 'the Persian Wars' was nonsense of a sort that were I less old and more privileged, I would have risen to my seat at the Odeon and scandalized all Athens by answering him." Having thus dismissed Herodotus, Cyrus then dictates his life story to his nephew, Democritus, with similar disdain for the Greeks--whom we in the modern world have come to view as the progenitors of civilization, but whom Cyrus considers to be bad-smelling rabble.

Of course, Cyrus Spitama speaks with a very modern, ironic voice supplied to him by Gore Vidal--and the political intrigues in which Cyrus finds himself immersed are likewise familiar territory for fans of Vidal's historical fiction. But the narrator's delightfully wicked observations are the icing on a narrative of truly epic scope--out of his desire to understand the origins of the world, Cyrus undertakes journeys to India, where he encounters disciples of the Buddha, and China, where he engages Confucius in philosophical conversation while the great sage fishes by the riverside. Creation offers insights into classical history laced with scintillating wit and narrative brio.

Book Description

Once again the incomparable Gore Vidal interprets and animates history -- this time in a panoramic tour of the 5th century B.C. -- and embellishes it with his own ironic humor, brilliant insights, and piercing observations. We meet a vast array of historical figures in a staggering novel of love, war, philosophy, and adventure . . .
"There isn't a page of CREATION that doesn't inform and very few pages that do not delight."
-- John Leonard, The New York Times

Customer Reviews:

Simply the Best.......2007-04-15

This is the best historical fiction novel written by one of the best historical novelists ever.

Fantastic tale!.......2007-03-20

Incredibly, it took me three tries to finish the book. The first two times I put it down because it talked at length about Greek politics and it was a bit boring. However, I am glad I got to finish it. The story portrayed in Vidals' book is Cyrus Spitama's and his travels during what Jaspers called the Axial Age. Spitama, the grandson of the prophet Zoroaster, is imagined to travel to India and to China, where he met with the most prominent religious figures of his day, namely:
Makkhali Gosala (p. 204-07). This thinker parted company with Mahavira. He believed that everyone begins as an atom and has to go through 84,000 rebirths. Only then is the monad finally blown out. Everybody must endure the entire cycle from beginning to end. There is no way out. Nobody can help one escape the cycle.
Mahavira (p. 219-23). He achieved "kevala". He was the 24th Tirtankara ("Crossing-maker"), founder of the Jains. He upheld an atomistic view of life. He believed in the need to extinguish karma by refraining from actions (including good ones).
King Bimbisara
Buddha (p. 330-36) and his disciples Sariputta and Ananda. See Buddha's rebuttal of God's existence in pp. 624-25. Spitama says: "The absence of deity, of origin and of terminus, of good in conflict with evil...the absence of purpose, finally, makes the Buddha's truths too strange for me to accept." And again: "It is astonishing to think that millions of people actually think that at a given moment in history, two human beings [Buddha and Mahavira] had evolved to a higher state than that of all the gods that ever were or ever will be. This is titanism. This is madness." (p. 300)
Lieh-Tzu (p. 489-96)
Confucius (p. 549- 57)Spitama cites his views in detail (p. 672-73)
Democritus' views (p.701)

Unseemly Questions.......2007-02-23

If X Created Us, Then Who Created X? And other Unseemly Questions.

About 2,500 years ago, a blind old man remembers his adventurous life. He is half Persian, half Greek, and traveled all over the world known to his people. He's met every major thinker of his time and posed to them the same question--in effect the same question. In India, he sat with Buddha. In China, he fished and chatted with Confucius. He listened to their explanation for how we came to be and asked the next question: Who created that set up? His grandfather Zoroaster taught him about the Wise Lord, but as he comes to realize, not where the Wise Lord came from. Confucius is the only one with a coherent answer: there's no point in inquiring what we can't know, so let's instead focus on the here and now.

At one level, this is a philosophical treatise. But like all great books, it works on more than one level. So this is also a picaresque adventure story, told delightfully by the weary yet ever so witty old man, Cyrus Spitama. From the ghastly enamel makeup on a Persian great queen's face to the exotic foods sold in a Chinese market place, the details are marvelous. Several historical characters come to life, Persian emperor Xerxes among them. By the end, Xerxes no longer cares about Greece or China or India or even his own empire. He just wants to stay in his harem and drink. That's one response to the complexity of existence.

Fortunately, Spitama has a very different response. He explores and learns and then transmits his learning to his young nephew, Democritus--another historical character, the philosopher who originated the view that the world consists of atoms in constant motion. What would the fictional Spitama have thought of atoms? One suspects he would have been most curious. The book, a wonder of engaging narrative, raises tantalizing issues and really makes one think.

Great book!.......2007-01-05

This is the second copy for me; I read this many years ago, and I loved it. It is a history and philosophy lesson while being a very good story. The time is one of great ferment-4-5th century B.C. and formed the basis for so much of what we know and believe today.

A journey that reveals but doesn't answer.......2006-02-02

The story begins in Greece at the end of Cyrus Spitama's life. The ninety year old blind sage is recollecting his memories so they can be dictated to his nephew, Democritus. The perspective of recollection permits Cyrus to use the knowledge of future events to color his recollections of the past. Also, his scribe is permitted to make editorial comments throughout.

In childhood, Cyrus was tenuously kept alive by precarious events, alternatively faltering between favor and imminent death. Perhaps that is why he is so fascinated with death and "creation." Cyrus's mother is a master politician who keeps her thumb on the pulse of the palace, most notably the gossip among the eunuchs, and forges an alliance with the queen that keeps them alive. Eunuchs are the conduit of information due their permitted proximity with prominent members of the royal court. So, the first third of the book is a portrayal of court life at the height of the Persian Empire circa 400 BC.

Via a convoluted apotheosis, Cyrus becomes a favored ambassador of the king. The remaining two-thirds of the book, Cyrus's physical journey as ambassador for the Persian king, is really a spiritual survey of eastern religions. Only with a fictional character can such artistic license be permitted that one individual would meet the charismatic leaders of so many great religions in one lifetime: Socrates, Confucius, Lao Tse, Gosala and Buddha. Although Cyrus has been assigned by the King to investigate special trade routes through eastern kingdoms, he maintains an alternative motive to spread Zoroastrian principles through heathen lands. As a devout Zoroastrian (his grandfather was the prophet Zoroaster himself), the religions and cultures of Greece, India and China (Cathay) are presented in a critical manner by a skeptical narrator.

This is a thick book and rich with details. "Creation" by itself is a life's work and I am repeatedly awed that Vidal somehow has cranked out volumes and volumes of these historical epics. At times, Cyrus encounters so many characters so quickly that it's hard to keep everyone strait. This book is a primer in so many areas: eastern religions, cultures, and politics. The book represents a truly a mammoth project. Even Cyrus's Indian marriage is described in sordid detail. If you are only going to limit yourself to one Vidal ancient history novel, I would recommend "Julian." But this is a close second. Although the nature of "Creation" is the driving force behind the novel, Vidal presents a journey of discovery, but does not provide a simple answer. Among the great ancient religions (Christianity and Judaism are not included) the reader is left to forge his or her own conclusion.

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Historical Fiction at Its Finest
bravo!
4 score and 5 stars ago...
A Novel of Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln

Lincoln: A Novel
Gore Vidal
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0394528956
Release Date: 1984-05-12

Amazon.com

Lincoln is a masterwork of historical fiction, in which Gore Vidal combines a comprehensive knowledge of Civil War America with 20th-century literary technique, probing the minds and motives of the men surrounding Abraham Lincoln, including personal secretary John Hay and scheming cabinet members William Seward and Salmon P. Chase, as well as his wife, Mary Todd. It is a book monumental in scope that never loses sight of the intimate and personal in its depiction of the power struggles that accompanied Lincoln's efforts to preserve the Union at all costs--efforts in which the eradication of slavery was far from the president's main objective. As usual, there's plenty of room for Vidal's wickedly humorous deflation of American icons, including a comic interlude in a Washington bordello in which Lincoln's former law partner informs Hay that Lincoln had contracted syphilis as a young man and had, just before marrying Mary Todd, suffered what can only be described as a nervous breakdown. (Protestors should note that Vidal is only passing along what that former partner had written in his own biography of Lincoln.) Don't be intimidated by the size of Lincoln; if you like historical fiction, you should read this book at the first opportunity. --Ron Hogan

Book Description

"The portrait is reasoned, judicious, straightforward and utterly convincing."
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
In this profoundly moving work of epic proportion and intense human sympathy, Abraham Lincoln is observed by his loved ones, his rivals, and his future assassins. In this brilliantly realized, vividly imagined work of fiction, Gore Vidal gives us a portrait of America's great president that is at once intimate and public, stark and complex, and that will become for future generations the living Lincoln, the definitive Lincoln.
"Richly entertaining....For the general reader the elegant explication of the issues of the day gives hearty satisfaction: history lessons with the blood still hot."
THE WASHINGTON POST

Customer Reviews:

Historical Fiction at Its Finest .......2007-05-28

Gore Vidal's 'Lincoln' immerses the reader in Civil War Washington with rich detail. Vidal introduces few fictional characters and hews close to the known historical record in brilliantly recreating actions and conversations. Lincoln emerges as a master political strategist who invites his chief adversaries into his Administration and then lulls them into thinking they and not he are the real powers. By the time Lincoln acheives near complete power, Chase and Seward are unsure just how it happened.

By the end, this reader more pitied than despised Mary Todd Lincoln, but felt both emotions in full towards Lincoln's vicious and insane wife. Salmon Chase comes in for a richly deserved measure of disrepute with his incessant political ambitions. Lesser known characters such William Sprague and 'Chevalier' Henry Wikoff add color and dishonor. The examination of Lincoln's second secretary, John Hay, is fascinating and enlightening.

Vidal inserts several rebels into the story, including a glory-hound named David Herold. These characters are real, but little is known about them and it shows. A reduced role for these characters would have mercifully shortened the extraordinary length of the book.

Vidal controversially has Lincoln continuing to advocate the colonization of freed slaves right up until the day of his assassination. My understanding of the generally accepted view is that Lincoln had long since abadnoned colonization as a viable policy.

Vidal's 'Lincoln' is historical fiction at its finest - entertaining and elucidating. Highly recommended.

bravo!.......2007-01-25

Mr. Vidal has written an elegant story about one of the most troubling times in our nations history. As seen through the eyes of our greatest president, his cabinet and the people around him this book pulls you in and grabs you by the coattails. What is actual fact and what comes from Mr Vidals imagination? Every action, every word seems authentic and keeping in line with what we expect from the characters. A beautiful book, you feel as if you are right there seeing for yourself firsthand, the birth of a nation from grandiose ideas about democracy and union to a reality.

4 score and 5 stars ago..........2007-01-25

It is a book about Lincoln; the book was delivered on time and it was clean and just what we needed!

A Novel of Abraham Lincoln.......2007-01-09

In his 1984 historical novel "Lincoln", Gore Vidal has written with great insight about our sixteenth president, his cabinet, his family, his enemies, and the Civil War Era. Lengthy though the book is, the writing is crisp and eloquent. It held my attention throughout. The book is part of a series of novels by Vidal exploring the history of the United States.

In writing historical novels, it is difficult to tell where fact ends and fiction begins. This is particularly the case in dealing with a complex figure such as Lincoln whose life and political legacy remain controversial and subject to many interpretations. Controversial matters that Vidal addresses in his novel include Lincoln's attitude towards African-Americans and the Reconstruction policy that Lincoln might have pursued if he had lived. Vidal's book shows careful study of Lincoln's life and the Civil War era. He uses the resources uniquely available to the novelist to good advantage by probing the thought processes and feelings of his characters where historical evidence is lacking. I found the portrait of Lincoln compelling, but it is important to remember that Vidal is writing a novel.

Vidal's book begins as the President-elect arrives secretly in Washington, D.C. a few days before his inaugaration to thwart a feared assassination attempt in Baltimore. In the course of the novel, passages of recollection by various characters, reliable and unreliable, cast some light on Lincoln's earlier life. The book moves carefully and slowly, with a great deal of attention given, and properly so, to the earlier period of Lincoln's presidency. Much attention is given to Washington, D.C. at the outset of Lincoln's administration, to attempts to avert the war, to Lincoln's formation of his cabinet, and to preparing the nation for what proved to be a long bloody struggle. The pace of the book picks up as it proceeds through Lincoln's first term and reelection, the end of the Civil War, and the assassination.

The picture of Abraham Lincoln that emerges from Vidal is of a man of great intellect, ambition and will, determined to save the Union at all costs. Vidal portrays Lincoln's overriding dedication to the Union. In order to preserve the Union, Lincoln uses extraordinary and even ruthless political skills. Thus, Vidal's novel considers extensively Lincoln's relationship with his cabinet. Vidal shows Lincoln choosing a cabinet from among his political rivals for the presidency, as well as from loyalist democrats, in order to be all-inclusive in the war effort. Lincoln deals with uncanny skill with potential rivals for the presidency, especially Secretary of State Seward and Secretary of the Treasury Chase. (A recent historical study, "Team of Rivals" by Doris Goodwin also treats Lincoln's relationship to his cabinet at length.) The book also shows Lincoln dealing with similar finesse and force with the Radical Republicans in Congress, with Chief Justice Taney on the Supreme Court, and with his military leaders.

Vidal tells his story through a variety of perspectives. Most of the time, the viewpoint is that of John Hay, one of Lincoln's two secretaries, who had detailed and close access to Lincoln throughout the presidency. Hay and Lincoln's other secretary, Nicholay, together wrote one of the earliest biographies of Lincoln. Vidal also gives the reader a large portrait of the many southern conspirators against Lincoln. In particular Vidal develops the character of a young man named David Herrold, with uncertain purpose in life, who ultimately becomes part of the Booth conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase and his ambitious daughter Kate also receive a large share of attention in Vidal's novel.

For all the attention lavished on him, Lincoln as a man remains an enigma. Lincoln largely kept his own counsel and was not demonstrative in showing his feelings. Thus fleshing-out Lincoln's character offers the novelist a great deal of latitude, and Vidal makes the most of it. His novel focuses on Lincoln's difficult relationship with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, as she spends lavishly, engages herself in political intrigue, and descends to near-madness. The Lincolns endured the death of their young son Willie during the presidency. Vidal properly gives substantial attention to Lincoln's religious views, which became increasing theistic with the prolongation of the Civil War, but never Christian.

Although Gore clearly admires Lincoln and his fortitude in saving the Union, he emphasizes that Lincoln's success came at a high price over and above the loss of blood and treasure in a long bitter war. With his suspension of habeas corpus and supression of dissent, Lincoln expanded forever the power of the Presidency. The war effort changed the character of the United States from an agrarian republic to a centralized, industrial nation. At the end of the book, Vidal puts his own misgivings into the words of John Hay, stationed in France after the assassination.. Hay remarks that "Lincoln, in some mysterious fashion, had willed his own murder as a form of atonement for the great and terrible thing that he had done by giving so bloody and absolute a rebirth to his nation." (p. 657)

"Lincoln" is a thoughtful and moving book for those readers wanting to think about the ideals and political processes of the United States and about Lincoln's role in their continuing development.

Robin Friedman

Lincoln.......2006-11-09

ISBN 034531221x A very well-written book, and far more readable than the size of it might make you think, I found one problem running throughout the book - the lack of dates. Although Vidal periodically mentions a specific date, the lack of them makes for a somewhat odd effect: the war, and Lincoln's political career, seem to last a very short time.

That aside, a wonderfully different look at a Presidency that changed the U.S. forever. Despite the fact that Lincoln never intended to free the slaves, and having done so, didn't want them living in the same country as the white population, his role as hero has always detracted from his human-ness. This book gives that back to him, and to the reader.

Mary's rather loose grip on sanity is almost played for laughs at times, which is a little sad. Other than that, it's hard to find one true bad guy in the book - a reflection of real life that was nice to find in a book that, in the end, is a work of fiction. Unless you're willing to do a great deal of research to verify everything in it, I wouldn't read this as anything OTHER than a historical fiction.

Average customer rating:

Buy the book for the portraits....certainly NOT the articles.
original idea
The clothed and the bare....
What is a Pornstar?
Okay but not great

XXX: 30 Porn-Star Portraits
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders , and Gore Vidal
Manufacturer: Bulfinch
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Lights, Camera, Sex!
Thinking XXX (Extended Cut)
The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry
How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale
The Secret Lives of Adult Stars

ASIN: B000LP5IOC

Book Description

Now in paperback, a provocative look at todays leading porn stars combined with insightful, offbeat, and amusing texts by an all-star literary lineup. XXX, by renowned photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, features cleverly paired portraits (one clothed and one nude) of the top stars in pornographic film. A cross section of straight and gay men and women is represented, from porn legends to rising stars. Performers in the book include celebrities like Jenna Jameson (the leading porn star of our time), Ron Jeremy, and Nina Hartley, as well as fast-rising names like Sunrise Adams, Belladonna, and Chad Hunt. The book also features short essays on the intersection of pornography and culture by a wide range of distinguished writers, including Salman Rushdie, Francine du Plessix Gray, John Malkovich, Nancy Friday, and John Waters. XXX is a landmark artistic work that will contribute to the ongoing debate about the pornification of the culture at large.

Customer Reviews:

Buy the book for the portraits....certainly NOT the articles........2007-05-26

The photographs reminicent of Richard Avedon are excellent -- infact all photos are often framed like those of Avedon -- with the negative holders shown (albeit, they are digitally overlaid). The book also includes a collection of essays and diptychs of men and women (who happen to be porn stars). Each subject consists of a clothed portrait, followed by a nude photo (full frontals to 1/2 upper body shots). The concept of a pair of portraits, one clothed and one nude is facinating regardless of whether or not they are porn stars.

The book also includes essays on the subject of porngraphy -- some written by [...], mainstream actors, porns star themselves etc on the subject of pornography. Most of the writings are uninteresting and I believe are included in the book to "legitimize" the portfolio so that this coffee table book can be taken as a collection of "serious" photography.

I wish the photographer, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders had (ahem) "the balls" to simply captioned his work with a brief title rather than boring pseudo-intellectual babble in order to substatiate his work.

More interesting than the essays are the short concise bios written by the pornstar themselves at the end of the book.

original idea.......2007-03-19

Pornstars as people thats a first. Instead of erotic shots Timothy Greenfield Sanders chooses to show the inner beauty of both male and female straight and gay adult performers. I also recommend the dvd and cd soundtrack as both are excellent

The clothed and the bare...........2007-03-19

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders' book is more an art than a true 'Bare all' book. I say that due to the quality lighting and camera work -which is impeccable.

Shooting nudes is the photography world is difficult - at best. The problem is everyone is different; Not to mention everyone wants to see the proofs before they are published. Timothy Greenfield-Sanders' taste is beyond quality. The prints are easy on the eyes; simple, digestible, and makes no mockery of the patient. It seems the doctor took good time to both adjust and arrange the patients. The end result is both incredible and very impressive. The photographed look as easy, open, and inviting as we've never seen them before; and that is the seller!

This book is a winner - not to mention some interesting coffee table conversation! You'll be in charge of that one...

What is a Pornstar?.......2007-03-09

I find the book to be a complete review of the most recient pornstars ant the information on each one was quite informative. I would prchase thos book again if I did not own it.

Okay but not great.......2007-02-28

I found this book to be okay the pictures are great quality but to little text in the book and to many pics. But again the pics are good.

Average customer rating:

Scathing View of Founding Fathers
A fascinating biography that made me laugh out loud
Vidal the Iconoclast, more appropriate today than ever.
Fun to read but emotionally distant
Incredible historical fiction

Burr a Novel
Gore Vidal
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Hollywood

ASIN: 0394480244
Release Date: 1973-10-12

Amazon.com

Charles Schuyler is a personal assistant to Aaron Burr, the former Revolutionary War hero, vice president under Jefferson, and infamous slayer of Alexander Hamilton. He's also been employed by a group of political operatives in New York journalism circles to dig up evidence that Burr is the "natural father," as the expression goes, of up-and-coming presidential candidate Martin van Buren. Schuyler's journal entries are a wondrous prose picture of Jacksonian society, while an imagined autobiographical account from Burr provides a similar depiction of the nation's origins. Like all of Vidal's historical fiction, Burr has little use for America's received iconography, and draws upon contemporary sources to puncture the legendary reputations of Washington and Jefferson. There are also marvelous cameo appearances from figures like Washington Irving and Davy Crockett, of whom Schuyler notes, "He is considered a delightful figure. I can't think why." (There's also a substantial subplot in which Schuyler falls in love with a prostitute named Helen Jewett; readers may be interested to learn that she is, in fact, a real historical figure). --Ron Hogan

Book Description

Burr is the opening volume in Gore Vidal's great fictional chronicle of American history, each of which is being republished in the Modern Library . Burr

Customer Reviews:

Scathing View of Founding Fathers.......2007-06-06

Gore Vidal's BURR is an interesting, if somewhat rambling account of a lesser known man from our nations origins. Burr has often been vilified for his fatal "Interview" with Hamilton on Weehawken Heights. This novel seeks to put a voice on a little known personage who inter-acted with all the famous founding fathers.

Vidal has taken a lot of historical research and novelized it in order to flesh out an individual who left little or no paper trail of his life. Much that we know about Burr seems to come mostly from others. He was vilified by Hamilton who became his arch-enemy. Vidal uses Burr as a means to provide a scathing and perhaps more realistic view of our founding fathers.

This book came out shortly before the Bicenntenial in 1976 and few dared at that time to have any but praise and admiration for our nations origins. Gore Vidal wanted to be controversial in his view of the early republic. In this book, Washington, Hamilton and Jefferson all come down a peg or two. The novel shows us that all these famous men were guys on the make with the insider knowledge to make themselves the ruling elite of the nation. Burr was merely one of the more controversial of the crowd. He certainly lead a fascinating life and could have been a man of great influence for his time.

The novel proceeds at a slow pace at times moving back and forth between the present and the past. The chapters which deal with Burr's supposed memoirs are by far the most interesting and entertaining parts of the book. The rest of the story tends to drag a bit, and while Burr's views are certainly interesting, much of the perspective comes from the hand of the author. Vidal has a generally bad opinion of the government of the USA, and one can see here that he believes its origins were in Burr's time.

His portrait of Washy as a stiff, arrogant elitest of little imagination will no dount rile up many of his hero worshipers. I suspect that this portrait, while exaggerated, is not that far off the mark! The same can be said for the novel as a whole: Exaggerated, but not completely so. While I am not a Gore Vidal fan, this was the first work of his I have ever read, I would say for those interested in the early republic period that it is quite worthwhile.

Fans of Vidal no doubt have long read this book as his following is a devoted one. I don't know if I will ever read another of his books, but I did find this one worthwhile. An interesting view of a man and his times.

A fascinating biography that made me laugh out loud.......2006-12-21

First, I have to admit that I have not studied America's "Founding Fathers" so it is possible that some of what Vidal included in his book is controversial among historians. However, the book was a great read that helped me understand a bit of what was going on in our country during that time. Years ago I read "Lies My Teacher Told Me" about how American History is distorted when it is taught in our public schools. Since then I've been keeping an eye out for scholarly accurate but accessible books about the early republic. I'd definitely recommend this one. I'd give it 5 starts if it included a preface that stated what aspects were "controversial" among scholars. Whether you like Vidal or not, he is a great writer.

Vidal the Iconoclast, more appropriate today than ever........2006-12-04

"Burr" is my very belated introduction to the works of Gore Vidal. I'm glad I waited so long to read anything of his. Not only are other authors are just now catching up with him, but also it is part of today's political and literary climate in America to topple and stomp on our triumphal presidential statuary. "Burr" is at its best when burning historical idols, and burn it does -- this sure ain't Disney's Davy Crockett! Vidal may demur in the Afterword of this book that his opinions on Washington and Jefferson are not as severe as those of his title character, but they are hilarious nonetheless and may motivate the reader to consult other biographical material to peer behind these icons' magisterial facades. The book is uneven, however, with its disconcerting leaps back and forth between the two narrators and across decades. I wished for more of Burr's voice and less of his acolyte's. And that implausibly soapy surprise ending, wrapping up the two main characters in a big exclamation point, left me cold.

Fun to read but emotionally distant.......2006-09-01

Like most people of my generation, I've known Gore Vidal primarily as a personality, not as an author. His historical novel Burr (1973) was the first of his books I've ever read.

Burr is constructed as a novel with two narrators. The "present-day" (1833) narrator is Charlie Schuyler, a young law clerk in the office of Aaron Burr, an elderly but still vital man of 77. Charlie becomes interested in the life of this witty and roguish older man and eventually Burr agrees to dictate his memoirs to Charlie. This brings in the second and more interesting narrator, Burr himself, as he spins self-serving yarns about his life from his days as a young soldier in the Revolution to the duel with Alexander Hamilton to the adventurous plot that led to his sensational trial for treason.

As a novel, Burr is a mixed bag. The Aaron Burr portions of the narrative bristle with charm and energy. Every paragraph is full of biting and often hilarious commentary on the Founding Fathers. As with a real autobiography, Burr makes himself look good and glosses over his mistakes and tragedies. He shows no remorse for the death of Hamilton, and barely touches on the only meaningful relationship of his life, that with his daughter Theodosia, whom he molded into his idea of the perfect woman only to lose her in a shipwreck.

I found the Schuyler portions of the book much less interesting. Though Charlie does some investigation into the unanswered questions of Burr's life, I kept wishing there were more chances to hear from other voices. We're mostly just left to take Burr's word about things. Instead of more digging into the more nebulous aspects of Burr's life, the Charlie portion of the story is bogged down with two subplots that I found less than compelling: Charlie's relationship with a doomed prostitute and his involvement in a scheme to betray Burr by attempting to prove that the current presidential candidate, Martin Van Buren, is actually Burr's illegitimate son. At one point, he even meets Van Buren, who is portrayed as extremely charismatic. I just couldn't get interested in this ancient political "gotcha."

A larger problem with Burr is that the entire book is done as narrative summary. Almost nothing happens in "real time." Though Vidal is so skilled as a writer that the voice of Burr reminiscing about old times is very entertaining, this format dictates that there can be no surprises and no suspense. All of the events are long in the past, and both Burr and the reader know exactly where it's all going. We hear Burr tell about the dire insult that led him to duel Hamilton, but we never feel the anger. We hear about Burr's love for Theodosia (and the implications of others that it may have been unhealthy), but we never feel this one grand passion of the old rascal. We hear Burr weave his tale about the plot to storm into Mexico with the help of the nefarious James Wilkinson, but we're never recruited into Burr's dreams of conquest.

Incredible historical fiction.......2006-07-03

Gore Vidal is a great storyteller and his development of characters , as well as his re-creation of historical periods in our history is superb. Once I started this book, I could not put it down.

The story-teller in the novel is Charles Schuyler,a young assistant to Aaron Burr in his law office in New York in the 1830,s.Schuyler intends to write a biography of Burr,whom he much admires. Burr likewise has a great admiration for the young writer and begins to dictate to him his version of "what really happened "during the revolution and the creation of our republic.

Along the way we get to meet many famous characters from the revolution as seen through the eyes of Aaron Burr. Along with much political intrigue,we get some great portraits of George Washington,Thomas Jefferson,James Madison,John Adams,Alexander Hamilton,Martin Van Buren, Andrew Jackson, and even Davy Crockett.

In his afterword Vidal notes that his characters were seen through the eyes of Burr and don't necessarily indicate his own opinion.What I thought was great was that these men were portrayed as flawed human beings caught up in the particular period of time in which they lived,not always living up to their own rhetoric.Do any of us? The great men who founded our country are caught up in making political deals with one another,against one another,slandering each other,and generally displaying the same human failings that we all do at times.

Jefferson and Washington come in for especially harsh treatment from Burr,but when one considers the historical context and how Burr,s life intersected theirs, it is understandable how he may have seen them in this light.Burr himself comes across as always seeing himself as the one who has done the honorable thing,while others at times see it quite differently.I love the way vidal captures what it is like to be human.

I encourage anyone interested in American history to read this great book.

Average customer rating:

A great read...A man's book!
Brilliant Multi-Layered Storytelling
Very moving fictionalized account
Julian sings his tale from hades
An Amazing Read

Julian: A Novel
Gore Vidal
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 037572706X
Release Date: 2003-08-12

Book Description

The remarkable bestseller about the fourth-century Roman emperor who famously tried to halt the spread of Christianity, Julian is widely regarded as one of Gore Vidal’s finest historical novels.

Julian the Apostate, nephew of Constantine the Great, was one of the brightest yet briefest lights in the history of the Roman Empire. A military genius on the level of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, a graceful and persuasive essayist, and a philosopher devoted to worshipping the gods of Hellenism, he became embroiled in a fierce intellectual war with Christianity that provoked his murder at the age of thirty-two, only four years into his brilliantly humane and compassionate reign. A marvelously imaginative and insightful novel of classical antiquity, Julian captures the religious and political ferment of a desperate age and restores with blazing wit and vigor the legacy of an impassioned ruler.

Customer Reviews:

A great read...A man's book!.......2007-06-04

This is my second helping of Gore Vidal. I read "Creation" some years ago. This is a great novel. Gore Vidal has a tremendous way with words. He maintains tension in dialogue and drama so easily. This work concerns the emperor, Julian, who was unlike the post-Constantine emperors in that he favored a return to old-time religion, not the religion of the Galileans, which had become "official" after Constantine. The story traces his life based on a shared manuscript between two philosophy teachers. The plot thickens throughout the novel with conspiracy and political shenanigans. I only offer four stars because it is unreal that the Church has NO redeeming value, and comes across way too evil. Obviously, the ending is a tad predictable.

Pick it up! A great choice for Men's Book study groups! What a way to get boys to read. It is quite a fantastic way to begin a study of the Roman Empire in its last days.

Brilliant Multi-Layered Storytelling.......2007-03-26

My first Gore Vidal novel, and absolutely NOT my last.

I rarely have time to read as much as I like, but over the last week and a half I have carved time out at all hours of the day to get back to this book. I am a fan of history and historical fiction, and this is the good stuff without doubt.

Other reviews will give you the book report summary of plot and device, but I am here to tell you that the layers of commentary in this book were breathtaking. Vidal's personality seeps up through every page so subtly that on many occassions I found myself doing, in essence, double-takes: turning back a page or two and thinking, "Hang on... did he just?" and inevitably, the commentary, the literary slight of hand, the double meaning, and the three and four layer references I suspected were all there. I can only guess how many I may have missed.

As you know by now, this book is about the death of a king. The life and times of a leader who was dedicated to rejuvinating a divided country. A man whose mission required the unification of a nation divided along religious and political lines. It is the story of a leader who was assasinated after holding power for just three short years.

Vidal ends his novel with this:

April 1959 - 6 January 1964, Rome

This is a reference, I am sure, to the period during which he wrote it. It is also a reference to the dating of Julian's journal entries. But I believe this date range, specifically its terminus, serves another, typically subtle, purpose. It is a reference to another historical leader; one who strove to reinvigorate a faded empire, one who inspired similar division in his country, and one who met a similar, tragic end. I believe that this book is a farewell of sorts to John F. Kennedy.

Read it. It's amazing.

Very moving fictionalized account.......2007-01-05

A very well written novel about the Emperor Julian (361-363 a.d.), the so-called "Apostate".The story unfolds as if we were reading Julian's private diary. Comments are then inserted by two other characters, Priscus and Libanius, who were part of Julian's entourage as celebrated pagan lovers of wisdom. In the book we read how Julian had to suffer at the hands of his cousin Constantius, who exterminated Julian's family and always feared that Julian would one day usurp his position. The book shows how Julian remained faithful to his cousin (who made him Caesar in the East) even when his troops acclaimed him "Augustus". He claimed he did not seek to take revenge on Constantius and was very reluctant to become emperor. One cannot help but come to like this character (especially after reading his works, which I did a couple of years ago); I can only pray that the Lord may have mercy on his soul and allow him to see that Jesus he so reviled ("dead Galilean"). Christian orthodoxy is taunted throughout the book, and Vidal shows no sympathy for it whatsoever: Christians are depicted as intolerant, quarrelsome and close-minded. He then tries to present a nice picture of Chrysostom to counter-balance the view of Christianity, but the damage has already been done (But then again, wasn't Vidal irreverent toward Buddha himself in his other book, Creation?).
Here is a quote from the book I really liked:
" I always have the sense that I must hurry to get things done, that there is hardly any time at all for a man to impress his quality and passion upon a world which will continue after him, as unconcerned as it was when it preceded him. Each day that I live I say to myself: the visible world is mine, use it, change it, but be quick, for the night comes all too fast and nothing is ever entirely finished, nothing." (p.311)

Julian sings his tale from hades.......2006-11-17

I have wanted to read this book for years now, and have actually owned it for some months before actually picking it up. Most fiction bores me to tears; this was amazing. The fact that it was historical fiction on a personage I admire greatly didn't hurt, but I think it stands alone in of itself as a novel. Julian was the nephew of Constantine the great. He was a philosopher type, given to bookish persuits. He was more or less forced into politics, and was quite successful in his pursuits; particularly his military adventures. He was a true philosopher-king who nearly surpassed the conquests of Alexander the Great. And as a pagan, he attempted to turn back the tide of christianity. The book suffered from some minor flaws in terms of characterization and historical naievite, but largely it was a wonderful read. Even the pathos of the dying Julian was done very well. Inspiring!

An Amazing Read.......2006-07-24

Historical fiction does not get any better than this, and I'm
a tough audience. It is far and away one of my favorite books, and I only wish I could have the experience of reading it again for the first time. As far as I'm concerned this is Gore Vidal's finest work. Julian, the orphaned nephew of Constantine, raised in seclusion as a devout Christian, now a young nerdy philosophy student, is suddenly elevated to Ceaser and thrust into Gaul to quell the revolting German tribes with inadequate troops and commanders who have been instructed to
ignore him. Neither his cousin, the Emperor Constantius, or even Julian himself, realize that this unlikely prince is the greatest military genius since Alexander.

Vidal does a very credible job of describing Julian's early life and the conflicts and intrigues within his family and the imperial court. Julian comes across as a very real, complex, and even likable human character, as do the uniquely vivid secondary characters. Vidal is at his ironic and sometimes hilarious best in his discriptions of the conflicts in the early Christian church, and the correspondence and comments about Julian's diary between two philosophers who knew him are brilliant. Julian's unlikely conversion to Paganism is very vivid and believable. After all he DID try to restore the worship of the old gods, so he obviously felt pretty strongly about it. One is left feeling a sad "what if...." at his death, and cannot help but feel that history would be very different had he lived.

It's a case of not knowing where to start in recommending it. This is definately the alternate view of history, one the Christian church has been at pains to obliterate for centuries.

Average customer rating:

Wake up, America!
A major disappointment by a major writer...
Witty, bitchy, and impassioned, Vidal is on target critiquing unchecked state power
Gore Vidal is Not a Mainstream Wimpy Historian: He is Honest and Makes Readers Think
Vidal, like Tom Paine, truly irritates the fat and comfortable

Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace
Gore Vidal
Manufacturer: Nation Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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United States

ASIN: 156025405X

Book Description

The United States has been engaged in what the great historian Charles A. Beard called "perpetual war for perpetual peace." The Federation of American Scientists has catalogued nearly 200 military incursions since 1945 in which the United States has been the aggressor. In a series of penetrating and alarming essays, whose centerpiece is a commentary on the events of September 11, 2001 (deemed too controversial to publish until now) Gore Vidal challenges the comforting consensus following both September 11th and Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City: these were simply the acts of "evil-doers."

Customer Reviews:

Wake up, America!.......2007-06-08

Vidal's job has always been to act as a Cassandra during the final days of the American republic: like her, he always speaks the truth but no-one believes it. This book is really just a collection of magazine articles and it's a shame that at 82 he probably doesn't have the stamina for a comprehensive analysis. Having said that, it's still worth reading if only for the essay on Timothy McVeigh.
And if you think I'm exaggerating about the American collapse, consider the obvious parallels between the fall of Rome and the present American decline - the destruction of the currency; defeat in war; and the invasion of the homeland by foreigners.

A major disappointment by a major writer..........2007-01-22

Gore Vidal is one of my favorite novelists, essayists, and pundits. BURR is one of my all-time favorite novels. And the editorial review of this book sounded very much like it covered not dissimilar territory to one of the best films of last year, the documentary WHY WE FIGHT, which outlines the disturbing evolution of the military/industrial/congressional complex. But this book turns out to be an off-kilter screed, an opinion piece peppered with facts but largely rant and rave with an uncharacteristic lack of satisfying insight. He even gets at least one fact wrong: in listing all the treaties we've broken he mentions Kyoto as one of them; in truth congress never ratified that treaty, hence there was never one to break.

Every great writer is allowed an off day. This book, though, was such a major disappointment because Vidal's novels have such a keen grasp of historical context and Vidal himself has such a learned and insightful overview. For me, a major disappointment.

Witty, bitchy, and impassioned, Vidal is on target critiquing unchecked state power.......2006-11-07

Gore Vidal is not my favorite writer, political or otherwise, because his tendencies to name drop and to remind the reader of his patrician heritage grate on my nerves. That said, this slender volume of collected essays is required reading for anyone, liberal or conservative, who thinks that the train of the United States has jumped its Constitutional tracks and is headed for catastrophe, both domestically and internationally. It is also nice to hear someone so eloquently remind Americans that our Constitutional heritage is primarily one of mistrust of government, our own first and foremost, and to challenge the received opinion that this mistrust is now tantamount to treason.

Not only is this sense of distrust our obligation as American citizens, but it is also healthy, Vidal argues. He supports this argument by discussing the violent and murderous contempt our government has had for those in the world, both abroad and at home, who would challenge its claims to ideological and actual dominance. The first essay in this collection endeavors to explain why those abroad hate the American government by making reference to the hundreds of military ventures our nation has engaged in (with almost absolute impunity it must be noted) over the last half-century. Democratically elect a leader whose policies don't completely gibe with American national (read "commercial") interests? Then Uncle Sam will help depose him. Since the end of WWII, the US has intervened in so many other nations' internal affairs, often with disastrous consequences for the everyday people in those nations, that the mind reels. The question becomes not "why do they hate us" but "why have they waited so long to show it?"

The essays which follow the introduction deal with issues of domestic un-tranquility and, in particular, the violent response of one Timothy McVeigh to a federal government that rages unchecked. If that last phrase seems extreme, imagine seeing your wife get shot through the head (as she clutched an infant) hours after watching your 14-year old son shot in the back by the same "law officers," all because you were entrapped into committing the "crime" of sawing off two shotguns. That's what happened to Randy Weaver at his Ruby Ridge, ID, home. He, and not the murdering authorities, was the one accused of crimes in that situation, and the media, complicit with the federal authorities, did its best to cover-up the true criminals. Later, a group of non-traditional religious folks were murdered, with their 27 children, by the same lawless authorities, and again, the media and government manipulated the story so that it was the citizen, and not the government, who was to blame. These incidents, argues Vidal, are indicative of a rogue American government, one that blames its victims and exonerates itself at every opportunity. Vidal also inveighs against the puritanical, prudish prurience of those Americans who so desperately want to see their neighbors controlled that they'll excuse their government of any crimes committed to that end, no matter how heinous. As he notes when discussing Timothy McVeigh's murder of innocents in the Murrah building in OKC, "every pancake has two sides." Ignoring the larger side of that pancake, an unchecked government run rampant against the freedoms of "we the people" and our fellow human beings in other nations, is to our detriment.

One minor drawback to this book is that Vidal rarely provides a citation to back him up in his diatribe, but this is easily rectified by seeking out denser corroborative works on the various subjects Vidal discusses (the writings of Noam Chomsky come to mind, for example). Please don't let that complaint keep you from reading this book; its witty, bitchy, and impassioned defense of the US Constitution and of the Republic it supports is much needed in these dark days of omnipresent surveillance and endless wars on inchoate terror.

Gore Vidal is Not a Mainstream Wimpy Historian: He is Honest and Makes Readers Think.......2006-07-24

Gore Vidal's major assets in writing political books are his wit, knowledge, and ability to write. Mr. Vidal clearly shows what political problems exist and uses precision in diagnosing these problems. His PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACE, a phrase used by the great historian Charles Austin Beard, is apt title for this book. Readers should note that Vidal gives Beard credit for this phrase.

Vidal wrote one of the best assessments of the tragedy in Oklahoma for which Timothy McVeigh was executed. This tragedy which took place in 1995 is carefully discussed by Vidal. Vidal indicates that the way the feds explained the explosion is impossible to believe. One should note that the feds cleared the debris from this explosion as quickly as possible removing forensic evidence that could have implicated others or revealed that the force of the explosion was not due to the explanations offered by government "experts."

Another interesting facet of Vidal's assessment of Timothy McVeigh view of the U.S. government. McVeigh expressed anger and frustration and anger at government corruption and lying regarding both domestic and diplomatic issues. Vidal's evaluation of McVeigh is thought provoking. One should clearly note that Vidal does not condone McVeigh's actions, but one should at least be aware of why events, as tragic as they may be, do occur.

Vidal also gives some of the best explanations of U.S. foreign policy blunders that benefit no one except defense contractors, Pentagon bureaucrats, and some members of the U.S. House and Senate. These corrupt cronies faced a severe problem when the Soviets conceded that the U.S. could outspend them on arms races and comitted the crime of refusing to play the game any longer. Defense contractors, Pentagon flunkies, U.S. political figures, etc., had to invent new enemies to justify their bloated budgets and criminality. Vidal cites examples from Latin America (espeically Columbia), Asia, and Africa where U.S. political and military intervention has made life miserable and unbearable. What has been the result? Vidal carefully explains that Americans have become hated. In other words, the pious platitudes and obnoxious lies do not stand when the political realities and tragedies affect other peoples.

Those who have branded this book as "Bush bashing" have apparently not read it. Vidal does not spare anyone in this book, and he demonstrates keen criticism of those who are prominent Democrats and Republicans. Vidal had serious clashes with the Kennedys.

This reviewer doubts if Gore Vidal's books will change the world. However, his book titled PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACE is there for the record. One should carefully examine pages 22-41 to see just how extensive U.S. military and political intervention is.

Readers should refer to Theodore Rushton's previous review of this book to get a more concise view. This reviewer agrees with Mr. Rushton that this book is important. Gore Vidal is not a "trained historian" which is why the book is worth reading. Mr. Vidal does not cater to politically correct nonsense and political agendas. He is more concerned with truth which is a lesson current historians have long abandoned.

Vidal, like Tom Paine, truly irritates the fat and comfortable.......2006-07-10

Anyone who wants to understand the basic value of free speech in America needs to read this long litany of the abuses of government authority by the police, politicians and press.

All criticism of power obviously infuriates conservatives, and Vidal constantly skewers the rich, complacent, corrupt and conniving. It is definitely not meant to be read by rich fat conservatives of the Greedy Old Party, or even the Dumb Enough for Me set. Instead, it's a wonderful expose of the abuses of power by people who hold power; it's not meant to be fair, any more than 'Common Sense' by Thomas Paine was meant to be even handed. Like the Founding Fathers, Vidal believes American can be better if some of its inherited bad habits are discarded.

From Paine to Thomas Jefferson to Michael Moore, America has thrived in part because of its critics. And who reins in the critics? They must wage a constant rearguard action against everyone from Rush Limbaugh to Ann Colter. The very best are often betrayed by even their friends; but, this is often the price of being right instead of popular. Public debate in America is waged in a playpen of paranoid wolves; there is no mercy for anyone who bleeds in the arena of public comment. It is no place for the weak-minded.

Vidal is one of the best. Of course he's unfair; he's quick to cite government slaughter at Waco, but ignores the slaughter by religious cults from Jonestown to Heaven's Gate, and the appalling sexual child abuse by polygamist Mormons in Arizona. His talent is defending individual freedom against government conformity. This is the heart of a free society. In some countries conformity is an art form, such as Cuba, Iran and North Korea, but it is not the fate chosen by free people.

Government in America is truly as bad as Vidal states; but, every fault Vidal cites was brought to his attention by news reports and government studies and not by his own original effort. In other words, a free press exists and is effective. A century ago, critics such as Upton Sinclair were the first to tell all Americans about appalling conditions in industry. The result was major reform. Today, critics thrive throughout society from village newspapers to national publishers, plus millions of bloggers, book critics and letter writers. The result is a constant process of incremental reform.

Amazon.com book reviews are one such utterly new bastion of free expression; they offer another means to praise or cauterize the cogent or corrupt arguments of everyone from Vidal to myself. It is this freedom that makes Vidal possible and precious, and gives America an almost unassailable strength. This is one society where error of opinion or fact is pounced upon with vigor and glee, instead of being covered over in the genteel ivy of sacred tradition, pride and heritage.

Vidal is one of the best. You can learn a lot by reading a book, and this book is one of the most provocative. You (and America) will be better for it.

Average customer rating:

An Amazing Life
A Personal History
For as much as I like Gore Vidal works, I found this book a disapointing reading
Unlikeable
Dry As Old Sticks

Palimpsest: A Memoir
Gore Vidal
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0679440380
Release Date: 1995-10-03

Amazon.com

A candid memoir of Vidal's first 40 years of life. His famous skills as a raconteur, his forthrightness, and his wicked wit are brilliantly at work in these recollections of a difficult family, talented friends, and interesting enemies.

Book Description

This explosively entertaining memoir abounds in gossip, satire, historical apercus, and trenchant observations. Vidal's compelling narrative weaves back and forth in time, providing a whole view of the author's celebrated life, from his birth in 1925 to today, and features a cast of memorable characters--including the Kennedy family, Marlon Brando, Anais Nin, and Eleanor Roosevelt. of photos.

Customer Reviews:

An Amazing Life.......2007-05-21

Jackie Kennedy's step-brother shares the story of his extraordinary life, from his first love at age 18, through the age of 39.

A Personal History.......2007-05-04

Vidal, Gore. "Palimpsest", Penguin, 1996.

A Personal History

Amos Lassen and Literary Pride

To write a good and interesting memoir, one has to have led as life of excitement and Gore Vidal has. He gives an inside view of his life until he reached the age of 39. During those years he was part of American history and stepped fully into the culture of those years. He is step-brother to the late first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy and he seems to have known everyone of any importance from playwright Tennessee Williams to another first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt. He has become an icon of culture and good taste, totally suave and sophisticated. As a [...] male he has been labeled but he has managed to rise above that. From Vida, we all get to read about the society in which he lives and is a part of and which is so lucky to have him. More than just a memoir, it is a witness to history.
Vidal's life reads like a roller coaster ride. At 18 he fell in love with a boy who was killed in World War II and he decided that love was not his cup of tea and swore to never love again. He decided to never fall in love again and to settle for just sex with no emotional involvement. His honest and revealing life story entertains through out. I find myself looking back into every once in a while for sheer pleasure. His family is fascinating from his relationship to his step sister, his mother with her attitudes toward him, his grandfather, a blind Senator named Gore that gave him family ties to former vice president Al Gore. He writes of these people in the stream of consciousness and goes from past to present at will and everything is commented upon. He has been a mainstay in the literary world since he entered in 1945 and one of the highlights of the book is when he goes back to find former friends like poet Allen Ginsberg and the mother of his lover who was killed. He attempts to recover what he lost and when he writes of his boy who was killed at Iwo Jima, he is bigger than life and extremely human. That death has haunted his life and by putting in on the page, he is relieved of some of his personal pain.
As an author Vidal has turned out 24 novels, two memoirs, five plays, 13 essay collections and a book of short story. He is indeed prolific and no stranger to best-seller lists. His wit and personal wisdom are his trademarks and his calling cards. He both loves and hates the United States. He exaggerates to make a point and makes what might not seem to be interesting to be of major importance. His opinions are wonderful even if not to your liking. His disdain is aristocratic and snobbish and wonderful. As he winds and turns through his personal history he evokes a bittersweet life.

For as much as I like Gore Vidal works, I found this book a disapointing reading.......2007-03-29

As you would expect, this book is very well written, as anything else that Vidal writes. But if you are looking for an insightful book, this is not a book for you. His has been, doubtless, an extraordinary life from sitting at the opera as a child next to Mussolini to being connected through a stepfather to Jackie Kennedy-Onasis.

At the end of the day, I found this to be an anecdotical as oposed as insightful autobiography, and it seems to me, the reason for this is his lack of emotional insight in his every day life. Nothing wrong with this, but is not something I like to read.

Unlikeable.......2006-05-18

Gore Vidal is pretty unlikeable and it's hard to finish a book about someone so unlikeable. He's a very cold fish. The first 2/3s of the book are depressing to read, the last 1/3 with some info on the Kennedys is more interesting but not worth the journey.

Dry As Old Sticks.......2005-10-16

How could anyone who lived such an interesting life write such a boring book? (...)It's like the only point of this memoir is to score points off his contemporaries. And in so doing, further puff up his already inflated ego.

The guy clearly has no self-awareness whatsoever. Like are we supposed to admire him when he claims he is 100% top in bed and cares not a fig for his partner's satisfaction? Very admirable, Mr Vidal. What a prince amongst men!

His "life partner" is referred to in passing approximately three times in the entire book and is otherwise notable by his absence. As are friends in general. Did Vidal have any? No, just famous acquaintances he could pick apart, if this memoirs is anything to go by.

The structure of the book is as self-consciously clever-clever as is the title. A grab bag of memories scattered like cushions over the overstuffed horsehair sofa of the ultimate prissy literary queen.

Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta

Average customer rating:

eh...
Thought provoking......
The United Oil Oligarchy of Amnesia and Entropy
Gore Vidal Has Done His Homework and Relates Unpleasant Truths
He's a Patriot

Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta
Gore Vidal
Manufacturer: Nation Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1560255021

Book Description

When Gore Vidal's recent New York Times bestseller Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace was published, the Los Angeles Times described Vidal as the last defender of the American republic. In Dreaming War, Vidal continues this defense by confronting the Cheney-Bush junta head on in a series of devastating essays that demolish the lies American Empire lives by, unveiling a counter-history that traces the origins of America's current imperial ambitions to the experience of World War Two and the post-war Truman doctrine. And now, with the Cheney-Bush leading us into permanent war, Vidal asks whose interests are served by this doctrine of pre-emptive war? Was Afghanistan turned to rubble to avenge the 3,000 slaughtered on September 11? Or was "the unlovely Osama chosen on aesthetic grounds to be the frightening logo for our long contemplated invasion and conquest of Afghanistan?" After all he was abruptly replaced with Saddam Hussein once the Taliban were overthrown. And while "evidence" is now being invented to connect Saddam with 9/11, the current administration are not helped by "stories in the U.S. press about the vast oil wealth of Iraq which must- for the sake of the free world- be reassigned to U.S. consortiums."

Customer Reviews:

eh..........2006-11-21

Boilerplate rhetoric about how the US is the global policeman and no longer a republic but an empire. We've heard it all before...yawn...

And I even agree!

Thought provoking.............2006-10-20

I thought this latest collection of Mr. Vidal's work was timely and well worth the read. I applaud his bluntness and 'tell it like it is' attitude concerning the U.S. and it's push for world domination. This book will be interesting to anyone who is searching for an alternative view as to what is going on in our crazy, sordid post 9/11 world. Highly recommended.

The United Oil Oligarchy of Amnesia and Entropy .......2006-10-17

...with free enterprise for the poor and socialism for the rich.

The label "conspiracy theorist" holds a powerful stigma. For the most part, the conspiracy theorists themselves are to blame for that. For the most part the people I've run across who propagate and perpetuate these wild schemes are not the most critical thinkers out there. The evidence of this is the way conspiracies run in packs. Once they're talking about secret societies, secret connections and plots, more and more unfold, running off in tangents. It might start with the Kennedy assassination but soon area 51 and Roswell are evoked, the moon landing is a hoax, the Loch Ness monster and the inner Earth people. Not to mention the Catholics, the Masons, and the Jewish-communists.

But that shouldn't dissuade us from investigating anything. The fact that conspiracy theorists are nuts doesn't mean conspiracies never happen. People who believe everything that's slightly exciting to believe are no less critical thinkers than those who dismiss outright anything that threatens the veneer of civility and order.

In reality, a conspiracy doesn't have to be an intricate web of deception, some brilliant design everyone but you is in on. A conspiracy can be lots of powerful people acting in a similar way, through sneaky means and propaganda, for the sake of strengthening and securing their own power. Hillary Clinton was lambasted for speaking of a vast right-wing conspiracy, but as the story unfolds, we see a small handful of very powerful, rich people using their influence to try and drag down a President and his administration by any means necessary. She was right.

This book is a collection of essays unified by the assertion Gore Vidal is making that American is an empire, and that American military action and behavior, since before world war 2, has been an imperial attempt to control as much of the world as possible. If one looks at the whole of human history, none of this should come as a surprise. But in the modern debate, where Neo-con imperialism is compared to Nazism, Mr. Vidal is telling us that a better analogy would be the ancient Roman Empire, and that this has been going on a whole lot longer than since the neo-cons have been in power. The primary difference today is near-transparency of the current administrations goals, and the deplorable depths of depravity to which they'll sink to accomplish it. The unprovoked, unilateral invasion of Iraq was just one of hundreds of unprovoked, unilateral military actions the American empire has engaged in post-WW2. But in the past, America had the self-awareness, pride and patience to do things in a deceptive manner, exercising domination economically (the Marshall plan), or through low-key military presences (like NATO in Western Europe) and by meddling around the world with an alphabet soup of secret police (CIA, FBI, DEA, DIA...). So, there's nothing new going on in the Bush-Cheney Junta. It is a matter of degrees, but previous presidents and previous administrations don't get off the hook unscathed.

And the media, owned by powerful, rich, well-connected corporations, don't get off unscathed. Vidal discusses the role of the media, paid off to keep two major characteristics of the America off the radar off the people, the first being the existence- not to mention the pervasiveness- of a class system, and the second being the nature of the U.S. Empire. Outside of the United States, these are not secrets. When the twin towers fell, Americans turned to each other and asked in genuine bewilderment how anyone could hate us. When the answer was supplied for us, "they hate us because they hate freedom," enough people could actually get themselves to believe this to accomplish the re-election of the worst, most venal bunch of ganefs in American history. American people could accept the premise that people around the world want to attack us with suicidal acts simply because they envy our goodness. That's not just us being stupid, that's us being uneducated and misinformed. (And distracted! Was that really a partial breast seen during a football half-time show? Heaven forfend! Let's have congressional hearings about it.)

Drawbacks? Because this is a collection of essays written for different sources at different times, you get a lot of redundancy if you read this book cover to cover. Also, while I'm not a knee-jerk pro-Israel kind of guy (I have plenty of criticism for the way Israel has acted and I see a lot more complexity in the situation than people on either side ever acknowledge), I do cringe a little bit when Mr. Vidal gets on the subject of Israel's role in today's geopolitical scene. He hints at Israel's mistakes, but then, in his wonderfully droll, mischievous style, declares that one can't criticize Israel without being accused of anti-Semitism, complete with a sarcastic tone that says `gosh, what could be worse than being an anti-Semite?' I know he's making an important point but, as someone who grew up being taught that they will eventually get around to blaming everything on the Jews again, I can't help but feel a touch queasy.

All that being said, this is an important book, it offers an alternate take on the modern situation that needs to be heard. And Gore Vidal, as opposed to someone like Noam Chomsky, reports in his inimitable sassy style, which turns a painful topic into pleasurable reading. That takes some talent. Thumbs up.

Gore Vidal Has Done His Homework and Relates Unpleasant Truths.......2006-07-30

Gore Vidal wrote DREAMING WAR:BLOOD FOR OIL and the CHENEY-BUSH JUNTA shortly after he wrote PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACE. The second book is just as good and as well written as the first. Vidal states obvious truths which anger some because they are so obvious and true.

Vidal's collection of essays deal with the American Empire which is a term that the Establishment does not like because the word empire is an accurate term in describing U.S. Government meddling. Such a term might give Americans an uncomfortable view of the reality of U.S. diplomacy.

Some of these essays confront the unconfortable truths regarding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Vidal gives a brief but clear account of the FDR lads goading the Japanese to attack this naval base in response to U.S. pressure that would have reduced the Japanese to famine had they adhered to U.S. policy. One should note that U.S. foreign policy against Japanese presence in China was due to some vague nonsense about the Open Door Policy in China. One should note when the Chinese Communists came to power in 1949, the Open Door was slammed shut in everyone's face. By eliminating the Japanese as a power in China, the road was wide open for Mao tse-Tung and the Chinese Communists to take power after a prolonged civil war that lasted from 1927 to 1949.

Vidal is also very clear that the use of nuclear weapons against the Japanese in 1945 was unnecessary. Vidal cites a letter dated July 18, 1945 written by the Japanese Emperor begging to surrender and ending the war. This is a matter of public record now, and few if any "mainstream" historians have mentioned this. Vidal makes effective use of Alperovitz's book THE DECISION TO USE THE ATOMIC BOMB: THE ARCHITECTURE OF A MYTH. Vidal notes that many well known military men including Admiral Nimetz, the General Eisenhower, etc., were very much opposed to the use atomic bomb. Or course, none of this is very well publisized as it undermines the political myths upon which the American Empire is built.

Vidal also deals with more recent events such as the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, U.S. destructiveness in Latin America,etc. These interventions fit the classcial definition of empire which is largely unknown to Americans. Vidal destroys the myths that have been presented as truth regarding these events, and he undermines the official truths of these events.

Vidal has some interesting remarks re "Official Truth." He well knows that Lord Acton's dictum that, "Official truth is never actual truth" is an accurate statement. When Vidal made a production for The History Channel, some Establishment hacks formed a panal to smear Vidal. Vidal notes that he was not invited to defend himself, and Vidal further conclusively refutes the hacks on this panal. One should note his remarks re this attempt to smear him.

Vidal has some interesting remarks about U.S. domestic policies. He mentions that government authorities have made a war on alleged domestic policies to divert attention from foreign interventions. Americans have had a war on illteracy, a war on poverty, and a war on drugs. If anyone is interested, illiteracy, poverty, and drugs have won.

Vidal has some interesting suggestions for solving or reducing problems. He suggests, to use the expression, "Smaller is better." Vidal cites Thomas Jefferson's remarks re making Washington, D.C. about the centralization of power in that city and the destructive consequences of such a concentration of power. Vidal suggests that Americans should live in confederated sections which, while not eliminating corrpution and economic ruin, would significantly reduce such problems and give Americans more direct control.

Vidal has some interesting comments on American "education." Vidal comments on the ignorance of Americans re their own history or any history. Vidal also condemns the ignorance of geography whereby Americans do not even know where interventions take place. One should note that the "experts" in Congress do not where these areas are either. They have shown their ignorance when some un-American has asked them to locate any of these places on globe, and these "experts" did not know the difference between South American and Antarctic or anywhere else for that matter.

Vidal has been accu