Rating: 
Summary: Well written, but not worth it
Review: I have been thoroughly disappointed with everything that Gore Vidal has published since "The Golden Age" (and that was not him at his best). I have enjoyed his novels, chiefly "Julian," "Creation," "Burr," "Lincoln," "1876," and even "Empire" and Hollywood." I still recommend these books because of their wit, their invention, and their iconoclasm. I would also recommend his large collection of essays. However, when it comes to this book praise is difficult. First of all, although it does cover much the same ground as "Burr," but a great deal of this work is spent dispensing gossip half truths and obscure quotations which really do not seem to amount to much other than iconoclasm for iconoclasm's sake. It seems that the only people who come off reasonably well in this book are Adams and Franklin (which is odd since they represented different views on life and future of America). The other "founding fathers" are disparaged through and through. While I believe there is a place for these sorts of evaluations, I do believe that Vidal goes too far at times. The characterization of Hamilton as a "British agent" which he expresses in a somewhat peculiar fashion really is too much. Personally I dislike Hamilton, believing him to have been a positive menace after he left government service at the age of 40. However, I do not know of a reputatable historian who would support this claim by Vidal. The reason that Franklin comes off so well is that Vidal has found a rather picquant and pessimistic quotation from "the sage of Philadelphia" expressing fear of the degeneration of the American republic. This obscure quotation is raked over throughout the book. For this service Franklin is praised, though I am not sure he would welcome it. One gets the impression that there is a part of Gore Vidal who seems to believe that the US invented political corruption and this has been with us from the beginning. While the second part is true, this is a phenomenon which the US can not claim exclusive ownership. I think the failings that he delights in are failings that exist in politics and politicians regardless of the age and that one might have to grade these people on the curve or be left with no one worth considering "praise worthy" other than failures and nonentities for the simple reason that they never had the opportunity to be corrupt since they never held office or did anything important to begin with. His main concern is a continuing sense of outrage over the election of 2000 and the "Bush Junta." I think that this has colored his ability to address issues related to the founding fathers in the book and it has has resulted in a greatly inferior product. To be sure, the writing, the wit is still there, but there is also an annoying audacity much to the discredit of the book and its author.
Rating: 
Summary: our greatest living author
Review: I have read every word ever published by Gore Vidal, and consider him the greatest living American author. A national treasure. His essays, in particular, are among the finest ever written in the English language. This book is diverting, insightful, funny, iconoclastic, well-researched, and, most important, truthful. It is Vidal working at the top of his form.
Rating: 
Summary: More Than Just History
Review: I read this book after having the fun of listening to Mr. Vidal discuss it at an event last month at the new National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. I've also taken into account some of the earlier reviews posted here. I agree it's not his best work; I'd save that distinction for LINCOLN and the UNITED STATES essays. However, it is a very thoughtful and funny piece of work. Vidal INTENDS you to think about what he says. There is more to history (at least there should be) than just getting the dates and names right. If you want the life of Washington read D.S. Freeman or J. T. Flexner. If you want John Adams, go to David McCullough. If you want Jefferson, see Joseph Ellis or even Dumas Malone. Those are first-rate biographies. However, what Vidal attempts here (generally successfully) is the second part of history - how does what they did reflect now? What present events suggest we haven't come as far as this founding trio would like? (See his comments on the relationship of Adams' Alien & Sedition Acts to the Bush Patriot Act.) It's funny, elegant, and enlightening. I enjoyed every skewering line.
Rating:
Summary: Flesh and Blood.
Review: I would recommend the purchase of 'Inventing a Nation.' The main selling point of the book is Vidal's unbeatable style. You already know who the players are; 'court historians' have already identified them for you, in gross detail. Two of them adorn Mount Rushmore, gazing at a country that today they might find very strange indeed. (John Adams didn't make the cut for Mount Rushmore, I guess you would have to ask Gutzon Borglum why . . .) What the court historians don't generally do is make an effort to cast the Founding Fathers as human beings, remarkable as they were. In this book, we read about Washington's financial troubles with his mom, Jefferson's uneasy working relationship with John Marshall, and Adams' never-ending correspondence with his wife Abigail. Along with Washington, Adams, and Jefferson, Vidal takes time to embellish the margins of his portrait with sub-miniatures of Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall, James Madison and the ineffable Talleyrand. If a bland regurgitation of dates, times and places are what you are looking for, look to a textbook. If you are looking for a breath of fresh air, and a walk among giants that were only human after all, look to Vidal.
Rating: 
Summary: Detailed, but unfocused
Review: In INVENTING A NATION, Gore Vidal focuses upon the creation of the Constitution of the United States and upon the key figures who fashioned that momentous document (with the main thrust concerning Washington, Adams and Jefferson). It is a large undertaking, and one which is only partially successful. Vidal offers a lot of historical details and anecdotes, pulling in quotes from letters, speeches and writings straight from the horse's pen, as it were. But his presentation leaves much to be desired. I learned a fair number of facts while reading this, yet I don't feel I really gained any new insights into this important time in US history.
One of the main things I didn't care for was the fact that Vidal presents a lot of quotations but a majority offers no hint as to the context in which they are delivered. I'm not accusing him of making things up or even twisting the words of the Founding Fathers. However, it's difficult to really understand what the meaning is behind the sentences when we don't know where they came from. Are these public speeches meant to put an opinion in the best possible light or private letters in which inner thoughts are revealed? The origin and emphasis has a huge effect on how the modern reader should interpret them.
The narrative voice meanders all over the place, moving from one event to the other, regardless of linear progression or actual relevance. I'm certain that there must have been some order behind the presentation of these passages, but there were times when I just couldn't see it. Hell, there were times when I was having trouble following it.
That said, the portions dealing with single morsels of history come across very well. There are many fascinating particulars scattered throughout -- a lot of things that I had never heard of before. In a handful of places he compares and contrasts a historical topic to a more modern event (say, the Presidential Election of 2000). I found these to be intriguing insights. I know that some people would prefer that nothing recent at all even be mentioned in a history text, but history repeats itself and to ignore the author's own opinions about a given parallel would be dishonest. Nor did I find him terribly unbiased in that regard; he seems equally grumpy about all things modern.
I think the ultimate superficiality of this book becomes most apparent when one first picks it up and notices that the text only runs to one hundred, eighty-nine pages (with suspiciously large spacing between lines). Gore Vidal is a gifted writer and storyteller, meaning that the individual anecdotes and details are written in an engrossing and whimsical fashion. Yet the text as a whole has the feeling of something written without a starting outline and without a second draft. It comes across as history written as stream-of-consciousness. The little stories are fascinating, but the big picture is lost.
Rating: 
Summary: Unscholarly Rant
Review: In this poor excuse for a work of scholarship, Vidal spends his time (and ours) entertaining personal assumptions (see Publishers Weekly review), viewpoints, and pet themes. Why, in the middle of a purported historical work on the Founding Fathers, does he digress into making weak connections with the war in Iraq, his generalizations of contemporary America, and other unrelated, obviously biased dribble? If I want politically charged opinion on the topics of the day, I'll read Op/Ed pieces, or at least something that admits its bias from the onset. If you are looking for an unbiased, focused, and SCHOLARLY substantive work on the topic, read Ellis' Founding Brothers. It won the Pulitzer--because it is everything Inventing a Nation is not.
Rating:
Summary: Unscholarly Rant
Review: In this poor excuse for a work of scholarship, Vidal spends his time (and ours) entertaining personal assumptions (see Publishers Weekly review), viewpoints, and pet themes. Why, in the middle of a purported historical work on the Founding Fathers, does he digress into making weak connections with the war in Iraq, his generalizations of contemporary America, and other unrelated, obviously biased dribble? If I want politically charged opinion on the topics of the day, I'll read Op/Ed pieces, or at least something that admits its bias from the onset. If you are looking for an unbiased, focused, and SCHOLARLY substantive work on the topic, read Ellis' Founding Brothers. It won the Pulitzer--because it is everything Inventing a Nation is not.
Rating:
Summary: A song for America
Review: In this vibrant book of historical nonfiction, Gore Vidal illuminates the key figures and events that shaped the founding of the American Republic. He brings to life Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and others to create a powerful portrait of America's beginnings. By peering at the past, we gain a better understanding of the current political climate, and "Inventing a Nation" is a glorious testament to our founding, colored as it is by Vidal's astute observations and insights.
Rating:
Summary: A Much Needed Reminder of the Past
Review: Just when we need him most, here comes Gore Vidal with a slim but deep look at our nation's beginning. Vidal's elegant, waspish wit makes this book (along with everything else he writes) a delight, but the true value of this work lies in its content. Vidal makes it clear in his afterword that the book was inspired by a brief conversation he had with John F. Kennedy in November 1961. Kennedy wondered why we had no great men of the caliber of the Founding Fathers in his own time (how depressed he would have been had he lived forty more years and witnessed our present crop of "leaders"!!) Vidal doesn't really give us a clear answer to Kennedy's question, but he does manage, in less than 200 pages, to remind us of both the Founders' human frailties and their greatness. With Vidal Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, and many others don't come out as icons, but neither are they the villains some would make them. One finishes this book in an hour or so aware that the men who created our nation were human after all, but intelligent and dedicated men who compare rather well with their successors in 2003.
Rating:
Summary: Who does he like?
Review: Mr. Vidal likes George Washington. We get some history here and some inventive literary licence..At least he doesn't tell us he took a walk with George Washington..The very talented Shirley MacLaine who also writes books, in one of them told us she had dates with Charlemagne..She may be dancing a bit too high there, whereas the prolific Mr. Vidal has his feet on the ground.
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