Andrew Jackson, the populist with a major case of imperialist chauvinism, is exploding in the polls. Making reference to the American fictional landscape of the 19 th century, and in particular the works of Hawthorne and Melville, Vidal begins with a frame narrative set during an election not unlike our own this year.
Many would argue that it is perhaps Vidal’s finest work, though I wonder if his book on Lincoln fits that category as well. Kicking off his Narratives of Empire cycle, Vidal traced the history of our American imperial project back to the Founders and delivered a genius diagnosis in the form of a post-modern historical novel with wicked sense of humor. Living outside Providence, I have seen Broadway musicals rolled out with regularity at our local theaters before hitting the road tours across the country, meaning this Hamilton buzz seems like one among many previous rodeos (though the Clinton fundraiser angle is out of the ordinary).Īs an antidote to this propaganda, I highly recommend to readers the excellent 1973 historical fiction novel Burr by Gore Vidal. I have been observing with mild apathy the gleeful reaction of late to Hamilton, a musical about the Founding Fathers that traffics in the typical white supremacist nonsense about the creation of the United States.
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