Empire (Modern Library) - Hardcover

Vidal, Gore

3.86

2,392 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679602933 ISBN 13: 9780679602934

Publisher: Modern Library, 1998

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Empire, the fourth novel in Gore Vidal's monumental six-volume chronicle of the American past, is his prodigiously detailed portrait of the United States at the dawn of the twentieth century as it begins to emerge as a world power.
------While America struggles to define its destiny, beautiful and ambitious Caroline Sanford fights to control her own fate. One of Vidal's most in-spired creations, she is an embodiment of the complex, vigorous young nation. From the back offices of her Washington newspaper, Caroline confronts the two men who threaten to thwart her ambition: William Randolph Hearst and his prot�g�, Blaise Sanford, Caroline's half brother. In their struggles for power the lives of brother and sister become intertwined with those of Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt, as well as Astors, Vanderbilts, and Whitneys--all incarnations of America's Gilded Age.
------"Mr. Vidal demonstrates a political imagination and insider's sagacity equaled by no other practicing fiction writer," said The New York Times Book Review. "Like the earlier novels in his historical cycle, Empire is a wonderfully vivid documentary drama."
------With a new Introduction by the author.

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Review:

There are two epic struggles in Empire, the fourth of Gore Vidal's fictional meditations on the history of the United States. First, there is the historical conflict between Theodore Roosevelt--the war hero vaulted by circumstances into the Oval Office at a time when America is about to become a global power--and newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst. Then there's the battle between the fictional Caroline Sanford (the great-granddaughter of Aaron Burr) and her half-brother Blaise over their late father's estate. Caroline, cut off from the money until her 27th birthday, is furious that Blaise plans to invest (and probably lose) most of it in Hearst's journalistic empire, and initiates a counterstrike by putting together the money to buy her own newspaper in the nation's capital.

As always, the scenes are populated by the powerful men and women who dominated American government and society. John Hay and Henry Adams are particularly prominent here, along with Hearst and Roosevelt. But there are also appearances by even more diverse figures, such as novelist Henry James and populist leader William Jennings Bryan.

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