| Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated Contributor(s): Vidal, Gore (Author) |
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ISBN: 156025405X ISBN-13: 9781560254058 Publisher: Bold Type Books
WE WILL NOT BE UNDERSOLD! Click here for our low price guarantee Binding Type: Paperback - See All Available Formats & Editions Published: April 2002 Annotation: The United States has been engaged in what the great historian Charles A. Beard called "perpetual war for perpetual peace." The Federation of American Scientists has catalogued nearly 200 military incursions since 1945 in which the United States has been the aggressor. In a series of penetrating and alarming essays, whose centerpiece is a commentary on the events of September 11, 2001 (deemed unpublishable in this country until now) Gore Vidal challenges the comforting consensus following both September 11th and Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City: these were simply the acts of "evil-doers." "None of these explanations made much sense, but our rulers for more than half a century have made sure that we are never to be told the truth about anything that our government has done to other people, not to mention our own. That our ruling junta might have seriously provoked McVeigh and Osama was never dealt with. We consumers don't need to be told the why of anything. Certainly those of us who are in the why-business have a difficult time in getting through the corporate-sponsored American media, so I thought it useful to describe here the various provocations on our side that drove both bin Laden and McVeigh to such terrible acts." "The awesome physical damage Osama and company did us is as nothing compared to the knock-out blow to our vanishing liberties: the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1991 combined with the recent request to Congress for additional special powers to wiretap without judicial order; to deport lawful permanent residents, visitors and undocumented immigrants without due process." Could it be that the greatest victim of the September 11th terror attackswill be American liberty?"Once alienated, " Vidal writes, "an 'unalienable right' is apt to be forever lost." Gore Vidal is the author of twenty-two novels, five plays, many screenplays, more than two hundred essays, and a memoir. The Times Literary Supplement (U.K.) noted that Vidal's "United States (Essays 1952-92) is one of the great American books of the twentieth century." It won the 1993 National Book Award."Gore Vidal is the master essayist of our age." Washington Post "Our greatest living man of letters." -- Boston Globe"Vidal's imagination of American politics is so powerful as to compel awe." Harold Bloom, New York Review of Books |
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| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Political Science | History & Theory - General - Political Science | American Government - General - Political Science | Peace |
| Dewey: 363.320 |
| LCCN: 2004540368 |
| Age Level: 18-UP |
| Grade Level: 13-UP |
| Physical Information: 0.5" H x 5.01" W x 7.68" L (0.34 lbs) 174 pages |
| Features: Price on Product |
| Review Citations: Booklist 03/01/2002 pg. 1053 Kirkus Reviews 03/15/2002 pg. 398 Booklist 03/15/2002 pg. 1188 Publishers Weekly 04/01/2002 pg. 63 New Yorker (The) 09/16/2002 pg. 100 New York Review of Books 12/18/2003 pg. 26 |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: The United States has been engaged in what the great historian Charles A. Beard called perpetual war for perpetual peace. The Federation of American Scientists has cataloged nearly 200 military incursions since 1945 in which the United States has been the aggressor. In a series of penetrating and alarming essays, whose centerpiece is a commentary on the events of September 11, 2001 (deemed too controversial to publish in this country until now) Gore Vidal challenges the comforting consensus following September 11th and goes back and draws connections to Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. He asks were these simply the acts of evil-doers? Gore Vidal is the master essayist of our age. -- Washington Post Our greatest living man of letters. -- Boston Globe Vidal's imagination of American politics is so powerful as to compel awe. -- Harold Bloom, The New York Review of Books |
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