A Good Book: Inventing a Nation by Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal’s Inventing a Nation is a vivid, moving account of the earliest days of the birthing of our nation. The closing decades of the 18th century come alive through the words, letters, notes, and deeds of the principal founders, especially the towering figures noted in Vidal’s sub-title: Washington, Adams, and Jefferson. Vidal presents his readers with an engrossing portrait of their personalities, egos, intellects, fortitudes, and frailties. With our nation now embroiled in the birthing of a democracy in the Middle East, we can only hope that the modern-day founders possess the same talents and sensibilities shown by our nation’s progenitors. Vidal’s work highlights their erudition, their literary skills, their classical education, and their understanding of human nature—all of which the founders brought to bear as they agonized over the best form of government for our fledgling nation and debated over the conflicting interests of the landless and the landed.

Inventing a Nation displays Vidal’s immense historiographic and literary skills. As readers, we relive the rivalries that prevailed between the political parties, between the nation’s regions, and between Europe and us. Shifting his chronological focus in effortless fashion, Vidal routinely fast-forwards to the present, making historical events seem virtually timeless as they foreshadow the issues, debates, and rivalries of today. For example, America’s founders struggled over the authority of the federal government versus states’ rights, and politicians even then debated the “original intent” of the Constitution. Sound familiar? The founders could not have fathomed today’s information technology or the speed by which information is processed and delivered, often after first being sanitized and spun through wag-the-dog channels. Nor, indeed, can we begin to fathom their discomforts and distresses across the length of the alimentary canal. Dental abscesses and diarrhea surely compromised many a quorom.

Vidal’s work is not only an entertaining and absorbing look at our nation’s past, but also a telling mirror for the present. He concludes by name-dropping (understandably so) in recounting a 1961 conversation at Hyannis with JFK. Puffing cigars, they wondered together how a backwoods nation could have produced three of the geniuses of the 18th century: Franklin, Jefferson, and Hamilton. The anwer: Time. They stayed at home on their farms in the winter. They read. They wrote. They thought. How much of our time or that of today’s public servants is spent in such contemplative endeavors? We need to take a lesson from our founders and read more— especially books like Inventing A Nation.  -- Anthony J. Perzigian, Senior Vice President & Provost for Baccalaureate & Graduate Education

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“A Good Book” features a favorite book of someone in the UC community.

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