These nineteen essays richly confirm Gore Vidal's reputation as "America's finest essayist" (The New Statesman), and are further evidence of the breadth and dep

Contemporary literature encompasses so many genres, literary forms, and themes that it would seem almost impossible to identify a unifying thread between them.

Serving as a vehicle for change and offering an outlet for the anxieties of a changing socity, Watts writes, the War of 1812 ultimately intensified and sanction