Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Essay: A Little Too Fashionable
Review: Need a Christmas stocking stuffer for your friends who are interested in American history and American politics? Buy Inventing A Nation!Inventing A Nation is a very fashionable book. For example, John Adams is very fashionable in today's historical and political circles. But, the real political muscle behind John Adams is missed by Vidal. John Adams older cousin Sam Adams. Sam Adams had the real political clout in terms of men and financial backers. Vidal does mention that Aaron Burr finds it necessary to "flatter" Sam Adams (page 130). But he doesn't follow up on Sam Adams, the real leader of the Adams political machine. Sam Adams was a well educated, calvinist protestant, popular with the tradesman, small merchants, sailors and laborers of Boston. Sam was able to get the wealthiest man in Boston, John Hancock to dress up like an indian and throw tea in Boston Harbor. John Adams is nice, but, let's not forget "Uncle" Sam. For the serious student of Washington, it seems that Washington's financial difficulties were ameliorated after his mysterious trip to western Pennsylvania/western Virginia in 1784...there maybe the basis of a historical novel in that trip itself for those familiar with old legends...even Albert Gallatin a/k/a Galatini shows up in that tale... I intend to again read Vidal's mentions of Patrick Henry. Both Henry and Sam Adams were elected to the Constitutional Convention. Neither one of them decided to attend. Inventing A Nation is a great port of departure...
Rating: 
Summary: 4 1/2* Vigorous, Controversial, and Fascinating
Review: Opinionated, erudite, passionate, witty, and manifestly sure of himself, Vidal makes himself as much a subject of the book as Washington, Jefferson, or Adams. He is everywhere present: in his winking asides, his revolving idealist/cynical stance, and in his time-leaping comparisons of contemporary times with those of the founders. Vidal's sometimes quirky writing style includes unfinished rhetorical questions, an apparent disdain for textbook grammar, references to Shakespeare and the classicists (often in Latin), circuitously long sentences, and a tone alternating between scholarly report, detached bemusement, and profound concern (sometimes combining them into an inventive and provocative alloy).
Citing Benjamin Franklin's written opinion (delivered by a friend to the Constitutional Convention) that our form of government will "eventually end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other," Vidal shifts immediately to a 1996 Franklin biography, "[with] significantly-inevitably?, Franklin's somber predictions cut out, thus silencing our only ancestral voice to predict Enron et seq., not to mention November 2000, and following that, despotism whose traditional activity, war, now hedges us all around."
All of this will madden those who either disagree with his political views or who expect a traditional historical treatment. Although Vidal obviously knows American history, the book is fundamentally an auteur's extended op-ed page or stage piece. Vidal's portrayals are a synthesis of his vast knowledge, prodigious research, hindsight perspective, and refreshingly unafraid opinion, mixing fact with both conjecture and psychological insight. Once you accept this (or put the book down in disgust), you can enjoy Vidor's writing as you would a letter from an affectionate but outspoken family member: One who rules over discussions with a mix of fact and fancy, who educates, persuades, and regales his audience (including himself).
Vidal covers the intriguing and monumental years from the pre-revolutionary era through the tumultuous presidencies of Washington and Adams (and, especially, contemporaries Hamilton and Madison), ending with a too brief discussion of Justice John Marshall and the roots of judicial review. After this always fascinating and sometimes frustrating view of the nation's founding, he provides an entertaining afterwards (as if he were finally free to really inject himself into the book) which includes a powerful anecdote about John F. Kennedy that poignantly conveys Vidal's anguish over the country he believes we have left behind.
Rating: 
Summary: Gore Does It Again
Review: There is a reason Gore is America's greatest essayist and man of letters: Inventing a Nation proves the boy has not lost his chops. Witty, snide, gossipy, erudite, hilarious, the book is as much about Gore as it is about our founding fathers. You will not put this book down. Best of all, by writing about the past, Gore is also writing about the present -- a nation presently run by men (and one woman, Condi) who fall very, very far short by comparison.
Rating: 
Summary: Warning
Review: This book about the founding of the USA is laced with anti-Bush diatribes. This is more political commentary than history. If this is what you are expecting, then you should enjoy this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Supercilious Ego Trip
Review: This book is all about how smart and witty Vidal thinks he is. Why doesn't he just build an altar to himslef so we can all worship at his feet? Enough already with the same lame stuff. Do not expect any serious insight about the founding fathers. He disguises lack of scholarship and historical understanding with dime-store psychology and tabloid journalism.
Rating:
Summary: There are much better books on the founding fathers
Review: This book is neither well-research nor well-written. It's a dull rehash of what better historians have already written, combined with Vidal's editorial comments, many of which are of dubious relevance, and some of which seem to betray a shallow understanding of early American history. He wants to argue about the present from the past, which is admirable and honorable, but not likely to succeed when done in the kind of breezy, off the cuff way that it is done here. We are in a golden age of historical writing about this period of American history and about the founding fathers. You are much better off with McCullough on John Adams, anything by Joe Ellis (start with Founding Brothers), Isaacson's biography of Franklin, or (probably) the soon to be published Ron Chernow biography of Hamilton. Vidal's book looks amateurish and first draftish by comparison. I don't mean to gore Gore, but I am a little surprised by the good reader reviews here (is this "reader" review process corrupted?). I thought I should provide some balance.
Rating:
Summary: It Could Have Been Great........
Review: This could have been a great book had Gore Vidal decided that it wasn't about him. Many of his insights are excellent but marred by his acidic references to the current administration. There is plenty of great material here without Mr. Vidal deciding that it wasn't quite flashy enough unless he "enriched" it with his take on current affairs. There is a certain amount of entertainment value here but it is more a sideshow than a main event.
Rating:
Summary: Vidal's Vivid Portrait Of The Nation's Nativity
Review: This is a two-tiered ranking...five stars for Vidalphiles, and three stars for other readers. If you revel in Gore Vidal's witty, often acerbic take on our present-day society, you should find this book a delight. Otherwise, you will probably find it infuriating in places...but at least it's never tedious. On display throughout this book is Vidal's great gift to turn two-dimensional historic personages back into three-dimensional figures of flesh and blood. Vidal's narrative opens in the fall of 1786 as George Washington prepares to accept the call to lead the constitutional convention. This is a Washington, though revered by his countrymen, who finds himself in serious financial straits. The steady flow of visitors to Mount Vernon is eroding his resources--and demands for money from his mother are making things worse. Of all the Founding Fathers, Vidal perhaps best succeeds in offering a vibrant portrait of this proud, sometimes vain man, always conscious of his unique position in the new nation, sometimes struggling with the mantle of leadership that has been placed on his shoulders but never turning away from it. The subtitle of the book is "Washington, Adams, Jefferson," and while Adams also emerges as the stubborn, resolute leader who was fully aware of his place in Washington's shadow; and Jefferson lives and breathes as the restless, shambling, somewhat abstract and overtalkative intellectual he must have appeared to his contemporaries, other founders rise from these pages with equal vividness, some for relatively brief cameos, such as Franklin, and others who play larger roles, such as Hamilton. But Washington is at the heart of this story, as he was at the difficult, sometimes tortured enterprise that was involved in building a new nation. By now, we seem to have moved past the vision of the founders as a group of divinely inspired men who were the 18th century counterpart of Moses, accepting the wisdom of the heavens writ large on stone tablets. Vidal vividly reminds us just how much these men, for all their great gifts, were often groping almost blindly while a combination of wisdom with generous portions of luck and circumstance allowed them to forge something that still inspires awe more than two centuries later. Washington's death in 1799 closes the book, and this is fitting, for it also marked the passing of the founders' era. If you can deal with (or agree with!) Vidal's assaults on our "national security state" of the present day, you should find this a vibrant, engaging read.
Rating:
Summary: Hardly "fair and balanced"
Review: Vidal is wittier than he is wise, more erudite than he is intellectually honest. Still, he is enormously entertaining and provocative. For more genuine insight about the characters of the nation's founding, I prefer the straightforward Joseph J. Ellis' Founding Brothers.
Rating:
Summary: when the People shall become so corrupted ....
Review: Vidal's latest, is a broadside typical of the period he's writing about -- a mixture of historical anecdote, contemporary commentary and unabashed partisan analysis --in other words, a great read! Vidal surveys the period from 1776 to 1800, concentrating on the personalities and writings of Washington, Hamilton, Adams & Jefferson. Along the way, he contrasts 18th century politics and political philosophy with 21st century politics [only, since he sees little reasoned analysis in modern government]. And sometimes he just goes for the quick jab, as when he quotes Adams view of the newly arrived French minister as a comparison with our first unelected president: >>>>>>>John Adams had known Genet's family in France: he had also known the boy himself. Politely, he received the fiery minister and then wrapped him round with Adamsian analysis of the graveyard sort: "A youth totally destitute of all experience in popular government, popular assemblies, or conventions of any kind: very little accustomed to reflect upon his own or his fellow creatures' hearts; wholly ignorant of the law of nature and nations . . . " Adams did grant him "a declamatory style. . . a flitting, fluttering imagination, an ardor in his temper, and a civil deportment." Thus two centuries ago the witty French had sent us an archetypal personality whose American avatar would one' day be placed in Washington's by now rickety chair.
<<<<<<< But Vidal's slyness is only a cover for his real subject -- the creation of a government that could hold democracy at bay without the trappings of a monarchy. The book is not much longer than an old-style New Yorker series, and he summarizes major events like the constitutional convention to provide details of the men involved, as seen by themselves and their peers. Early on he shows the prescience of many of the founders: >>>>> At eighty-one Franklin was too feeble to address the convention on its handiwork, and so a friend read for him the following words: "I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such: because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well-administred; and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administred for a Course of Years and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other.
Now, two centuries and sixteen years later, Franklin's blunt dark prophecy has come true: popular corruption has indeed given birth to that Despotic Government which he foresaw as in-, evitable at our birth. Unsurprisingly, a third edition of the admirable Benjamin Franklin: His Lift As He Wrote It, by Esmon . Wright, is now on sale (Harvard University Press, 1996) with' significantly-inevitably?, Franklin's somber prediction cut out, thus silencing our only great ancestral voice to predict Enron et seq., not to mention November 2000, and, following that, despotism whose traditional activity, war, now hedges us all around" No wonder that so many academic histories of our republic and its origins tend to gaze fixedly upon the sunny aspects of a history growing ever darker. No wonder they choose to disregard the wise, eerily prescient voice of the authentic Franklin in favor of the jolly fat ventriloquist of common lore, with his simple maxims for simple folk; to ignore his key to our earthly political invention in favor of that lesser key which he attached to a kite in order to attract heavenly fire.
<<<<<<< In the afterword Vidal pushes the point home, starting from his discussion of the Alien & Sedition Acts, progenitors of the Patriot Act, he follows Jeffersons careful defense of civil rights with his orchestration of the states counterattack that resulted in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. Jefferson had to act cautiously, for, even as Vice President, his mere criticism of the acts of Adams & Hamilton could be a violation of the Sedition Act. [Not so different from today's Bush supporters who declare any dissent being aid and comfort to the enemy.] In this case, the ultimate confrontation was avoided by Jefferson's electoral defeat of Adams and immediate suspension of the 2 acts. But nullification remained an inflammatory concept lurking within the Constitution; exploding in the Civil War 2 generations later. Today, Vidal sees it as perhaps the last defense of the states when the Federal Executive abrogates power.
I've only traced here one of several threads Vidal ties to contemporary issues. Others include Hamilton's creation of the financial system, and Marshall's bold construction of judicial review. Shortness doesn't prevent Vidal from presenting many arguments that are vital to today's national politics. Conservatives kneejerk reactions is amusing since much of the discussion in the book is of ideas any true conservative should hold as core values!
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