The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000A new collection of provocative, witty and eloquent essays by Gore Vidal, the greatest living American man of letters and one of the finest essayists of the twentieth (and twenty-first) century. The Last Empire" is Gore Vidal's ninth collection of essays in the course of his distinguished literary career. As in the previous volumes, which include the 1993 National Book Award-winning "United States: Essays 1952-1992, Vidal displays unparalleled range and inimitable style as he deals with matters literary, historical, personal, and political. There are warm (and shrewd) appreciations of Edmund Wilson, Dawn Powell, Sinclair Lewis, and Mark Twain; polemical observations on the major figures and (as he sees it) deplorable developments in American politics, Bill Clinton, FDR, JFK, his cousin Al Gore, the CIA and the American empire, the global reach of media conglomerates, and the United States' disdain for the UN, as well as fascinating autobiographical vignettes. Pieces that have already generated shock waves include his essay in dispraise of the works of John Updike, his controversial defense of Charles Lindbergh, and his attack on the national security state that first appeared in "Vanity Fair. Nobody makes the fur fly in a more elegant and civilized fashion than Gore Vidal. He is our indispensable man. |
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Page 27
... tell her ― tell her what ? She never existed . What a precise miracle of illusion Edith Wharton created - never showing Sophy's room , giving her only one dress , one cloak , describing her only as fresh- faced - but she is real ...
... tell her ― tell her what ? She never existed . What a precise miracle of illusion Edith Wharton created - never showing Sophy's room , giving her only one dress , one cloak , describing her only as fresh- faced - but she is real ...
Page 110
... tell us about himself . Within the rustic temple , skeptical Clark and primi- tive Scripture - soaked Jesse tell us about themselves . Clark : “ Yeah , well . What was I going to say ? Something . I don't want to bore you . " Jesse ...
... tell us about himself . Within the rustic temple , skeptical Clark and primi- tive Scripture - soaked Jesse tell us about themselves . Clark : “ Yeah , well . What was I going to say ? Something . I don't want to bore you . " Jesse ...
Page 196
... tell you it'll be the most expensive adventure that this country ever went into . Doyle quotes C. Douglas Dillon to the effect that LBJ so fright- ened everybody that no one dared tell him the truth about the ex- tent of defeats until ...
... tell you it'll be the most expensive adventure that this country ever went into . Doyle quotes C. Douglas Dillon to the effect that LBJ so fright- ened everybody that no one dared tell him the truth about the ex- tent of defeats until ...
Contents
NineteenthCentury Man | 3 |
Queen of the Golden Age | 16 |
Lost New York | 30 |
Copyright | |
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