Product Description
When Gore Vidal's frank description of homosexual life, The City and the Pillar, was first published in 1948, the reaction was both unexpected and shocking. Republished now in hardcover with a new introduction by the author, this classic is being featured with seven of Vidal's early stories. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

What a deal for just a couple bucks!
This edition is a steal for what it offers, and at such a modest price! (I am not sure why Amazon describes this is "Hardcover". The edition I ordered here from a third party vendor was soft cover and inexpensive.)

Gore's better 1960s revision of "The City and the Pillar" is an trip into the gay underworld of 1940s America, and Gore's seven early stories are an added treat--each are quality and interesting in their own way. This is not the best Gore ever wrote, but it is a quick read and not very demanding--just perfect if you like short stories and novellas, as I do. I can only wish Gore had continued writing in this form in addition to his many novels.

Dark and disturbing
Having read this book immediately after Ethan Mordden's "How Long Has This Been Going On?" this book provided a more intense view of the gay underground in the late-40's and early 50's.Not only intriguing for gay readers, but for anyone whose illusions have been shattered in an endless pursuit of an ideal.

Should be required reading at all high schools.
The story takes you into the world that Keroak prefered to omit in 'On the Road'.Vidal is daring and honest.Had I read this when I was 18, my life would have been very different. ... Read more

Product Description
"Our form of government, our traditions, our present interests, and our future welfare, all forbid our entering upon a career of conquest," argued William Jennings Bryan, Colin Powell's predecessor as America's Secretary of State. American anti-imperialist tradition dates back to before the Declaration of Independence: Presidents Washington and Jefferson warned against imperialism in their farewell addresses to the country, Abraham Lincoln led the fight in Congress against wars of conquest, Henry David Thoreau spent his celebrated night in jail as part of a protest against an imperialist war, and Frederick Douglass, Jr., and Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois wrote extensively on expansionism. As the Bush administration seeks to spread American influence further than ever before, more Americans are asking whether imperialism threatens to destroy not just distant lands but the United States itself. Against the Beast collects the writings, speeches, comments, and cartoons of American anti-imperialist campaigners from four centuries, making the case that this finest of American traditions must be respected and renewed. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

truth hurts
This book is loaded with first-hand accounts from Americans throughout history who stood up on behalf of liberty during our darkest days. The author adds very little of his own, choosing rather to let history speak for itself. Most of the incidents covered in this book are conveniently skimmed over in history textbooks, such as the removal of the Cherokee Nation, forced annexation of the Kingdom of Hawaii, etc. Enlightening, disturbing, and inspiring at the same time, a great read for anyone who cares about justice and righteousness in our day and age.

Truly eye-opening
I would recommend this book to any thoughtful person trying to get a sense for how George Bush's America fits within America's historical trajectory.There are some heros in this book, but many more villains.

Most disturbing to me was the account of the treatement of the Native Americans -- as Nichols points out, we can't excuse past atrocities by saying, "That's just how it was back then"; there are always those who recognize atrocities even as they are being committed -- this book pays past heros a long-due debt of recognition.

Anti-Imperialism: How Relevant...
I usually don't like these kinds of books.By that, I mean 'books that compile articles/letters written in the past.'But "Against the Beast" is an exception.

In light of the events of today (today being July 27, 2005), it's refreshing (and a little sad) that 21st century Americans are not the first Americans to have to deal with an imperial President and hawkish supporters.This is the exact right book to read for a look-back on past anti-imperial thoughts and writings.

John Nichols: thanks for putting this together!

"Your brain is washed but your hands are still bloody."
My favorite March 2003 protest sign against Bush's war on Iraq was one that I saw at a huge demonstration in Wisconsin:'America, your brain is washed but your hands are still bloody.'That sign would fit well in this brilliant, essential collection by John Nichols, one of America's most important political writers.At the dawn of the 21st century America has been tricked down a disastrous path of empire in the name of security, freedom and democracy. Advocates of war hid their real intentions and exploited the terror attacks of 9/11, as Sheldon Rampton and I explained in our 2003 book Weapons of Mass Deception.John Nichols has here assembled the wisdom of America's true heroes and patriots for peace and justice, opening our eyes and showing us the way back home.

America's roots
I enjoyed this book tremendously; I appreciate being reminded of America's founding fathers and the beliefs that we started out with. It's also unique in having two indexes - a first lines index and a subject index. The publisher was certainly interested in making this information accessible. ... Read more

Product Description
Gore Vidal is one of the most significant American writers of the second half of the twentieth century, having produced a large number of best selling novels, essays, plays and pamphlets which have impacted on major political and social debates for fifty years. He is both a serious writer and a television and movie celebrity, whose increasingly acerbic picture of the United States guarantees he is both revered and reviled.


Gore Vidal's America examines the ways in which Vidal's writings on history, politics, sex and religion throw into focus our understandings of the United States, but also recognizes his versatility and inventiveness as a creative writer, some of whose novels - Julian; Myra Breckinridge; Lincoln; Duluth - are among the important literary works of their time.


Ranging from Vidal's early defence of homosexuality in The City and the Pillar (1948) to his most recent writings on the war in Iraq, this book provides a unique perspective on the evolution of post-World War II American society, politics and literature. As Altman writes: "Difficult not to see in the results of the 2004 elections, where the Republican right gained in both the White House and the Senate, proof of Vidal's worse fears, namely that the impact of imperial adventure, big money and religious moralism would increasingly imperil the American Republic." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

les faiblesses de M. Vidal
this book in revealing the weaknesses of Vudal also points to the strengths, and Altman becomes himself an important author, like Edmund White writing on Genet. To be read

great intro to contemporary US!!!
I don't much like Gore Vidal, but when I ppicked up this book Altman converted me: he makes Vidal seem far more interesting, important and lively than the old cumudgeon we see on television. A wonderful introduction to the US of the twentieth cnetury!!!--and quite witty to read ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Author's review
I wrote VIEWS with Gore Vidal almost twenty years ago.It is a delight to see that it has been a source of information for various scholars throughout these many years.I arranged the book in a new way for doinginterviews, putting Vidal into a dramatic setting where he had to answerquestions from more than twenty of us engaged in interviewing him.Imyself interviewed him off and on for more than three years.Reviewers atthe time called my format a new kind of Mega-interview form.I recentlyincluded material from VIEWS in a huge 750-page study that will bepublished by Edwin Mellen Press in 2001, a work to be known as GORE VIDAL:A MENIPPEAN SATIRIST.Vidal is America's greatest satirist--ever!Andthose people who read VIEWS will see that Vidal spares very few his quickthrusts of ridicule to bring them down to earth for a good laugh--at theirexpense, of course. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Brilliant Collection of Essays
Gore was in rare form in the 80s, inspired by the Reagan Revolution and the rise of the Christian Right and their focus on Israel and the impending Armageddon.

His essays collected here, mostly from the New York Review of Books and the London Times literary supplement, range from devastatingly funny looks at Nixon and the Reagans, the rise of armageddon cultural politics, as well as simply brilliant essays on writing, Calvino, Dawn Powell, Paul Bowles and others.

Each one takes you immediately inside Vidal's head, and his voice becomes yours as you savor every witty and insightful observation.A national treasure.

Canaille oblige
Gore Vidal gives us superbly vitriolic portraits of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, as well as of the Christian Right's Armageddon: 'Why conserve anything, if Judgment Day is at hand.'

But he sees through the rhetoric and the hypocrisy the real America of humming electric chairs and well-packed prisons. A US controlled by an oligarchical system where men of property can do well and the others are on their own; where the New Rich made their money with defence contracts, the circulus vitiosus 'transfer money from the Treasury to the various defence contractors which in turn pay for the election of Congress and President'; where the Pentagon is a black hole for wasted money while the public educational system is deteriorating because of a lack of investment.

On the moral side, he remarks perspicuously that 'In order for a ruling class to rule, there must be arbitrary prohibitions. Of all prohibitions, sexual taboo is the most useful because sex involves everyone.'

But this book contains also some remarkable essays on world literature: Henry James ('monsters have triumphed yet again'); William Dean Howells ('a darkness sufficiently sable for even the most lost-and-found of literary generations'); Logan Pearsall Smith ('idiom before grammar'); Paul Bowles ('the strangeness and terror of waking dreams'); Tennesse Williams ('he certainly believed in sin'); Italo Calvino ('the many in the one'); Anthony Burgess ('3 obsessions: religion-art-sex').

A book of a remarkable observer and analyzer.
We need his voice. ... Read more

Product Description
FIVE VIDAL NOVELS IN ONE HARDCOVER EDITION. COMPLETE AND UNABRIDGED ... Read more

Product Description
This study explores Gore Vidal's use of classical sceticism in his historical novels and in his politics. This is written against the backdrop of an analysis of the general genre of historical novels and the particular way that Vidal has used his re-versions and re-viewing of American history to give voice to his concerns for American despotism and exploitative use of power for imperial control. ... Read more