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The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2001 by Gore Vidal
Vidal’s prescient, lucid, and cutting perspective is exactly what we need as the American Empire appears to enter its final death throes. This essay collection dissects the transformation of the American experiment into an imperialist power and foretells its impending collapse.
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@taterhole
Feb 23, 2025
52
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@dakotablue
he’s just the best
Feb 23, 2025
1
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@taterhole
dakotablue literally nobody has can or will ever do it like him but as a cousin to him all I can do is try…
Feb 23, 2025
1
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@dakotablue
taterhole someones gotta carry that legacy. kalki is still in like my top 10 fav books
Feb 23, 2025
1
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@taterhole
dakotablue I still need to read Kalki but I’m a big Duluth fan lmao
Feb 23, 2025
1
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@dakotablue
taterhole i need to read that
Feb 24, 2025
1
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@taterhole
dakotablue it’s truly a wild ride…
Feb 24, 2025
1

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Afflicted powers: capital and spectacle in a new age of war
Lays out US imperial mission of perpetual war as a relatively new form of global occupation -- in spite of this mission's repeated failures. To borrow a phrase my bf just maybe coined today: the project of "American delusionalism" summarized. Dissertation inspo for me
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@111mes000
Jan 31, 2024
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how to hide an empire by immerwahr
it's about the US as a new kind of (Western) empire as told through the history of its colonialism and military occupation - super snappy and well-written! i'm always recommending it to friends :)
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@yejpearl
Jul 5, 2024
4
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🖋
"Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn."
"The more money an American accumulates, the less interesting he becomes."
“I'm not a conspiracy theorist - I'm a conspiracy analyst.”
“One is sorry one could not have taken both branches of the road. But we were not allotted multiple selves.”
“The unfed mind devours itself.”
“Until very recently, the artist was a magician who did his magic in public view but kept himself and his effects a matter of mystery.”
“Yes. With us the ability to detect mediocrity or anything else is rare. Evaluation descends, through ignorance, to mere opinion, and opinion is a matter of fashion. And fashion is based on middle-class, middlebrow values, despite the mock defiance of an occasional licensed fool, like Vonnegut.”
“Self-education is the point of education. But it is easier if you have escaped the stifling of the academy.”
“The critic must know more than either writer or academic. He must also value experience and have a truth-telling nature. I think I have that. In their youth most people worry whether or not other people will like them. Not me. I had the choice of going under or surviving, and I survived by understanding (after the iron - if not the silver — had entered my soul) that it is I who am keeping score. What matters is what I think, not what others think of me; and I am willing to say what I think. That is the critical temperament.”
"You can improve your talent, but your talent is a given, a mysterious constant. You must make it the best of its kind."
— Gore Vidal, my toxic opinionated egocentric guiding light in this sick sad world (quotes which are not broadly inspirational but are inspirational to me to be my best most audacious evil hater self)
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@taterhole
May 27, 2024
21

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