num_pages: 208
description: Gore Vidal’s uniquely irreverent take on America’s founding fathers will enliven all future discussion of the enduring power of their nation-building ideasGore Vidal, one of the master stylists of American literature and one of the most acute observers of American life and history, turns his immense literary and historiographic talent to a portrait of the formidable trio of George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. In Inventing a Nation, Vidal transports the reader into the minds, the living rooms (and bedrooms), the convention halls, and the salons of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and others. We come to know these men, through Vidal’s splendid and percipient prose, in ways we have not up to now—their opinions of each other, their worries about money, their concerns about creating a viable democracy. Vidal brings them to life at the key moments of decision in the birthing of our nation. He also illuminates the force and weight of the documents they wrote, the speeches they delivered, and the institutions of government by which we still live. More than two centuries later, America is still largely governed by the ideas championed by this triumvirate.
language: English
title: By Gore Vidal - Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson: 1st (first) Edition
titlecomplete: By Gore Vidal - Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson: 1st (first) Edition
characters: John Adams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson
genres: Audiobook, American, Politics, Historical, Biography, American History, Nonfiction, American Revolution, History, Presidents
ratings_count: 1423
places: The United States of America
series: Icons of America
publisher: Yale University Press