Rating: 
Summary: The Straight Poop
Review: Although dated now, this book remains as fresh as the day it was published. Indeed, most of the facts and trends Vidal described are exactly the same today. Progress is not an American virtue. This book will knock your socks off. A must read. Social criticism at its finest.
Rating:
Summary: The Straight Poop
Review: Although dated now, this book remains as fresh as the day it was published. Indeed, most of the facts and trends Vidal described are exactly the same today. Progress is not an American virtue. This book will knock your socks off. A must read. Social criticism at its finest.
Rating:
Summary: Vidal sets record staight
Review: Gore speaks wisdom. For those turned off by the corrupt state of American politics this book is required reading. Our political system has been taken over (wait a minute, hijacked) by corporate america and its cronies in Washington D.C. The "War on Drugs" is nothing more than a war on minorities and civil liberties. The national media is nothing more than a mouth piece for the well-off and elite. The "Cold War" was basically military-industrial complex wellfare scheme. Gore Vidal cuts through the bull s--t to show that the American people have been taken for a ride by the political establishment whose sole purpose is for the protection of the very elite. By the way; I am 37 years old. Not 12.
Rating:
Summary: Vidal on Target
Review: Gore Vidal demonstrates once more that as author and political pundit he remains well ahead of his time, but that it appears as if we are starting to catch up and comprehend the importance along with the necessity of his message.When Vidal ran for U.S. Senator in the 1982 California Democratic Party primary his opponent was Jerry Brown. The California Governor had a reputation for being unconventional in many ways like Vidal. When Brown later sought the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in the 1992 primaries he sought out the anti-establishment ideas he had heard Vidal espouse earlier. Vidal willingly helped Brown in the idea department in 1992 and the Californian ran a strong and idea-effective anti-establishment primary campaign. Since the sixties Vidal has preached that the American political system has become increasingly beholden to entrenched corporate interests, which is further reflected in an all too often obeisant media. Now the public has demonstrated an increasing alertness of the captivity as more individuals seek fundamental changes based on Vidal's concepts. Another fundamental idea that Vidal has tackled for many years, and on which the public is finally catching up with him, is the degree of infringement upon basic freedoms, as evidenced by the Bush-Ashcroft Patriot Act. He also rails against the dangers of the military industrial compex, and how its most reactionary elements have been served by an active intelligence community through the auspices of the CIA and the FBI. Vidal preaches hard core liberty in the best tradition of Founding Fathers such as Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin. This volume shows him at his best, witty, acerbic, and driving his point home with an economy of effort.
Rating:
Summary: A Superb Polemic
Review: Gore Vidal has the power to drive conservatives insane, I can't say why, but the mere mention of his name seems to turn them into screaming maniacs, that alone would make this book worth owning. In addition to its value as a heart attack inducer, it is also easy reading, witty and well written. I especially enjoyed his vicious attack on the Christian Church (which he refers to as the cult of the 'Sky God'). He is also right on target with his assessment of the pervasive dangerous of corporate power. This slim volume is not a scholarly tome by any means, but Vidal's strength is in the way that he says things, not in the way that he backs up his assessment. Less a stunning indictment than a readable, witty summing up of the Vidal take on several important topics. A superb little pamphlet.
Rating:
Summary: We need his voice.
Review: Gore Vidal is hard hitting and puts the facts straight.
The US is governed by the few, who are chloroforming the many through their control of the media. As a truly brilliant quotation of David Hume states: 'as force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion'.
The few for him are an emanation of monotheism, which can only be truly served by totalitarianism. The few keep also control by spending a big part of the real US budget on National Security (the military-industrial complex). For what? To support regimes which deny freedom, democracy and human rights to their own people. This situation is deeply hurting Gore Vidal, who above all loves freedom and telling the truth: 'should the few persist in their efforts to dominate the private lives of the many, I recommend force as a means of changing their minds'. (p.52) I agree with the above mentioned analyses of Gore Vidal, but I strongly disagree with the title of this book. Far from declining and falling, the US Empire is still a reigning world superpower and actually the only one.
The two main causes Gore Vidal cites for the fall are not there anymore. The Japanese economy imploded and is still imploding, and the US national budget is in a far better shape now than ten years ago.
I see at the horizon one big superpower emerging, on which the US high tech industry is already highly dependent: China. With a market of 1.3 billion people and a well educated population, China cannot loose if it plays it cleverly. It is doing it, for I saw it this year. This book is a must read for everyone interested in US and world politics.
Rating: 
Summary: Pouty
Review: Gore Vidal pretends in this book (and in other of his writings) to hate and knock America for ideological reasons. But he really hates America because America: 1)Didn't make him President. 2)Didn't give him the literary reputation of being America's Tolstoy. 3)Didn't make him a legendary movie star. Vidal has pursued all these goals, and fell short in all of them. Vidal has one of the hugest egos I've ever witnessed (read Martin Amis' profile of him in Amis' collection THE MORONIC INFERNO). His egomania comes close to sociopathy. In one of his novels (I forget which) the hero is named "Eugene" who Vidal describes as something like "the greatest savior the world had been waiting for." Vidal's real first name is Eugene (he changed it to Gore). He was writing about what he thought of himself. And shame on America for not thinking as grandly of him as he thinks of himself! THAT is why he knocks America and exaggerates its foibles to the level of paranoia. Which I don't believe is real paranoia. I don't think HE thinks America is headed for such ruin. He just wants to insult the country that he thinks betrayed him by not worshipping him. Pathetic.
Rating: 
Summary: Trying to Say Too Much
Review: I really wanted to like this book - but I've read better works on the same subject. I purchased this book because I saw a great speech by Gore Vidal on C-SPAN, but I was rather let down by this book. Pretty much everything here is dated (the book was edited back in '92) and it hasn't aged well (unless you want insight into the left of the 80's). In less than 100 pages Vidal tackles geo-politics and over 200 years of history - the result is that he goes a mile wide but only an inch deep. It's like reading a transcript of a speech rather than a well reasoned essay. The few interesting nuggets of insight get lost in the process. The same publisher did a series by Noam Chomsky (the Chomsky Trilogy) which is worth your money and deals with the same subject matter. The other problem is that Vidal is so cynical and doesn't spend much time offering up any new ideas. There is a rant about President Polk and the Mexican War - but does want us to give back Texas and California? You'll never find out because a paragraph later he is onto something else. The book oversimplifies complex issues - the result is an intellectual fast food meal that leaves you hungry an hour later.
Rating:
Summary: Why can one man see what so many fail to see?
Review: I'd like to think that I understand how the puzzle pieces fit together but I need people like Vidal to illuminate the connections, to see the picture rather than the mass of pieces strewn on the table. To take the metaphor further, he provides the picture on the puzzle box that shows you what you will eventually have when the pieces are together.
I find that with the daily blizzard of new's facts coming into my house that it's like sitting down to a twenty thousand piece jigsaw that strangely has no border.
Vidal throws out bits of history and then provides the connections allowing a picture to form-seemingly from random occurrences. I found after reading this wonderful, insightful little book that all the disparate post-WWII facts came together. Yes-call me stupid for not seeing the connections earlier but my defense is this continuous blizzard of facts that shower me-this blizzard is in itself designed to do just what it is doing to me and millions of others.
One little bit from this tiny read-living as I do in Australia, I could never see why what happened to Clinton happened-everybody here knew he was being undermined since he came into office. We didn't get much coverage of his attempt to rework the healthcare system-Vidal says very matter of factly that Clinton's attempt at this reworking was his undoing. The conservatives that orchestrated his downfall didn't want Americans to have what people in nearly every other government in the developed world have-what we in Australia take for granted-universal health care.
I'm sorry most Americans will miss reading this book because they will see it as "devil phoolosophy"-the powers at work have done a fabulous job for themselves.
Rating:
Summary: A sobering look at Mom's apple pie Empire
Review: It will not be easy for any of us who love our country to face the assertions Gore Vidal makes in this book, but this is exactly what we need to wake up from the current miasma of smoke-and-mirrors spin. Perhaps the proliferation of conspiracy theories is a symptom of what we all suspect, but are in denial about. Vidal confronts us with the cold hard facts: 90% of the disbursements of the federal government go to defense; our language has grown decadent and is used to disguise; the corporations control opinion through the conglomerate media; in 1991, 37% of federal revenues (taxes) came from individuals and only 8% from corporations. Reading this book will be worth the anguish it causes you. If Thomas Jefferson could see that his beloved country was being ruled by an elite through armies of lawyers, lobbyists, and paid-for-scientists, he would warn us all that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance; and this is precisely what Gore Vidal is attempting to do.
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