Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia

The fact that half of those qualified to vote don’t vote in presidential elections is proof that the third republic is neither credible nor truly legitimate

Until recently, the only thing that I knew about Gore Vidal was that he authored the script of Caligula, which he later disowned. Then one day I have been killing time on YouTube and found «The Cryrto-Nazi» debate between William F. Buckley, whose intelligence I admire, and Gore Vidal. After that, I have decided to right that wrong and read «Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia».

The book starts out as an anti-George W. Bush pamphlet. Gore Vidal constantly exposes his hypocrisy, wars, even accuses him of breaking of the False Statement Statute. Even his environmental legislation and anti-HIV/AIDS efforts has been described as cynical attempts to gut regulation and a way to please the Christian Right.

In the second part of Imperial America Gore Vidal tackles the creating of the American empire. In the author’s opinion, the Empire started in 1898, when the US has acquired Philippines. Nevertheless, until the end of the Second World War, the Empire had a very limited influence. Gore Vidal accuses Harry Truman of deliberately misleading the public about a scope of Soviet threat in order to start the Cold War.

Then, Gore Vidal disembarks the glamorous idea of the American Revolution. He points out that the constitutional convention was merely a business meeting. The Founders just merely adopted the best possible variant, and then Gore Vidal attacked the famed «checks and balances» as a way to disguise the anti-democratic foundation of the US. In addition, he pokes the religious rights by an anti-religious quotes from The Founders («This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there was no religion in it» - J. Adams). That is why, in the author’s opinion, the US needs a new Constitution with a Swiss model as a perfect example.

The best thing about this book is that it spurs your intellectual curiosity. Gore Vidal makes lots of rather controversial propositions (legalizing drugs, the stealing of elections by computers, the Secret Bank which rules the US, three Republics) and you want to do some self-research in order to support or oppose his ideas. Especially it concerns the part about creating of the Constitution – it makes you curious and in order to satisfy your little curiosity you have to check The Federalist Papers.

«Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia» is a well-researched critique of the American policy. If you are interested in such books, then read, it is quite easy and understandable to the general reader. In addition, I would like also to recommend a book by Richard Posner «Pragmatism, Law and Democracy» which, in some aspects, support Gore Vidal’s claims from a legal point of view.