Rating: 
Summary: Awful
Review: This book left me wondering how to sign up with the "secret cabal."
Rating: 
Summary: "War is so Twentieth Century"
Review: Gore Vidal is vital.Vital to the dissemination of truth in our endangered (from within) country. Vidal does an excellent job in portraying our times.
One of my favorites: "The Cheney-Bush junta is convinced that Americans are so simple minded that they can deal with no scenario more complex than the venerable lone, crazed killer (this time with zombie helpers) who does evil just for the fun of it 'cause he hates us, 'cause we're rich 'n' free 'n' he' not". (page 16).
The 196 pages are a quick read.
I highly recommend getting this book.
Rating:
Summary: Preaching to the converted
Review: Gore Vidal's book speaks eloquently to those who have already cast their political lot against the Bush administration. In this effort, Vidal provides the same kind of service for those of the Left that James Carville does for the average Democrat - persuasive rhetoric for an already converted audience. This kind of writing is inherently of limited value, all the more so when the average reader is not schooled in Middle East history, international relations, or the nuances of US-Iraq relations. Put simply, Vidal is simply not qualified to pontificate on the myriad issues surrounding the crisis. He is an artist, not a policy analyst or scholar. The lack of depth shows. His book contains no notes, no citations, and is threadbare on facts. You will learn little or nothing from reading this book. Instead, Vidal constantly invokes the Platonic method - asking damning questions to the reader, steering her to some ominous conclusion. The gimic fails miserably, as anyone who is even minimally literate in US Mideast policy can answer these questions, and the answers are nowhere near where Vidal points. If you simply desire an eloquent and strident condemnation of team Bush, by all means buy this book. If, however, you are seeking to understand the historic events unfolding in the Gulf, then this book should be avoided at all costs.
Rating: 
Summary: Viva Vidal!
Review: I purchased this book at the same time as "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace", also by Vidal. As in that case, I would rate this book 5 stars, except Vidal has a tendency to ramble at times. This book is somewhat packaged as a sequel to "Perpetual War", however the majority of the essays are from the 1990s. Nevertheless, Vidal sticks it to what he terms the National Security State and the Imperialism of America. A pretty fair combination of history and commentary, "Dreaming War" is a good, quick read for anyone who wants to understand contemporary American politics.
Rating: 
Summary: Dreaming War
Review: Although I was a bit disapointed that the book consists of a series of essays, many previously published, I gave it 5 stars because EVERY AMERICAN needs to know what the current administration is up to. We need to get this info out as soon as possible before these hi-jackers of America do any more damage to the US image or worse (WW3?). If Bush is not impeached, we will lose ALL respect in the world and set a horrrible example for future generations.
Rating:
Summary: Opposition is essential to democracy
Review: Thanks to Gore Vidal for this essential book. The conservatives are trying to make opposition in our country unpatriotic. In reality, the essential duty of a patriot is to oppose power that is used unwisely...Vidal, once again, does that.
Rating:
Summary: A Provocative Panorama from a Profligate Pamphleteer
Review: ...Gore Vidal opens this little book of essays with a piece written in mid-January 2001. In in he decries the "purloining" of the presidential election of 2000 by the Supreme Court. Never mind that the alleged abuse of black and elderly voters occurred in counties controlled by Democrat election officials and that the Gore machine wanted a recount ONLY in precincts dominated by registered Democrats. Nevertheless, Vidal lifts the liberal banner high and brands the new administration the Bush-Cheny "junta." Junta, of course, refers to a group of military officers who come to power by a coup d'etat. It seems to me that Vidal strains a bit here especially since he sniffs at their lack of military experience later on. The author then rambles on to try to puncture what he calls "Recived Opinion" or "RO". This, I guess, is what most of us would refer to as (noncapitalized) conventional wisdom. Vidal then proceeds to rant and rave through several essays about the "American empire" and discusses FDR's provocation of the attack on Pearl Harbor and Truman's decision to use the atom bomb on two Japanese cities. He asserts that prior to December 7th a Japanese prince wanted to meet with FDR to discuss peace. Never mind that they were disemboweling China and Southeast Asia at the time. Regarding the latter, Vidal posits that the Japanese were begging for peace for months before Hiroshima and Nagasaki but President Truman wanted to scare Joseph Stalin with a demonstration of our new weapon. Never mind that the Army, Navy and Marines had suffered a bloodbath on Okinawa trying to dislodge desperate, cut off, fanatical Japanese soldiers and Kamikaze pilots. The military estimated one million casualties would be incurred in taking the Japanese Islands. ...If you enjoy grandiose conspiracy theories that stretch back to World War II, you'll like this collection of Mr. Vidal's articles. If you hate President Bush 43 you should revel in Vidal's vitriol. If you support the "junta" you should read this to gain an appreciation of where the other side is coming from.
Rating:
Summary: Enlightening Pamphlet of Essays
Review: Gore Vidal has assembled a collection of his remarkably insightful essays, both new and old, dealing with America's legacy of manufacturing or exacerbating perceived threats to justify a not so angelic American foreign policy. He writes of how our citizenry is held captive by an alarming sense of fear that translates into a tradition of loyalty and support for a foreign policy with ulterior motives, eerily similar to what George Orwell spoke of in 1984. He emphatically believes that tradition is being employed in this unnecessary war with Iraq. Pick up a copy today and enjoy this quick and informative read.
Rating:
Summary: Another Pastiche
Review: Unlike those other great debunkers of official myth, Chomsky and Parenti, Vidal is a romantic. He pines for an America that once was or could have been, I'm not sure which. But it's that melancholy of the betrayed republic which provides point and meaning to what is otherwise largely stylish sarcasm; it also makes him the most entertaining of the three. I just wish he would sit down and write a single-focus work on 9-11 and aftermath, instead of patching together previous articles into pamplet-length booklets that may or may not have a lot to do with the title, (a charge he rebuts none too convincingly in Dreaming War). In my view, the most revealing chapter in this little tome concerns media censorship from that now testosterone soaked outlet mistitled The History Channel. Readers should find Vidal's first-hand account particularly illuminating of how corporate outfits like THC subvert provocative programming from iconoclasts like himself. Consider what a genuine service such channels would provide were they to schedule true roundtables that included the likes of a Vidal or a Zinn or a Kolko -- but why confuse all those ditto-heads switching over from the Limbaugh show on whom sponsors can now rely. This chapter is vintage Vidal, witty, biting, and incisive. And though Dreaming War does contain some fresh and worthwhile material, regular readers of The Nation may experience a growing sense of deja-vu along with a lighter wallet. So -- at your own risk amid a deluge of similarly themed books.
Rating:
Summary: Can we become a great nation?
Review: What other major novelist - annual Nobel laureate candidate - could go ignored in his own country when he writes an essay on the most talked about issue of the present - the Iraqi War and terrorism? What other country's major media would fail to review such a book.
Gore Vidal's last essay on our times was an underground best seller - unreviewed and ignored by the major media. Now, he writes about how we have come to be a nation presided over by a president who LOST the election, was the C-in-C when we suffered our greatest one day defeat since Pearl harbor and has started the greatest witch hunt since the 1950's.
Read this book if you think that it is patriotic to wave the flag at all of our troubles. Read this book if you have NEVER believed that the USA has fought a war for a wrong or evil reason or if you believe that the USA is NEVER wrong. Read this book if you cannot understand why so many other people in the world hate our government - and will soon hate us if we fail to take back our government and make it the bastion of freedom that we want it to be.
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