The late and great comedienne Hermione Gingold once said of her long life’s journey: “It would appear that I have tried everything except incest and folk dancing.”
As I look back on fifty-six years of writing, I seem to have used most literary forms available to me except journalism. I started, at twenty, with a novel; and went on to record, among other things, the history of the United States from revolution to millennium. Now I have returned—or rather, turned to the oldest form of American political discourse, the pamphlet. And so I dedicate Dreaming War to Publius, the joint authors of The Federalist, in whose words our republic truly began.
—GORE VIDAL
November 2002