The Last Empire

* Review Coverage

* In this latest collection of essays, Gore Vidal displays unparalleled range and inimitable style as he deals with matters literary, historical, personal and political. Nobody makes the fur fly in a more elegant and civilised fashion than Gore Vodal. He is our indispensable man.Gore Vidal's new collection of essays shows him still writing at his finest. His comments on the deplorable state of American politics - from Bill Clinton to George Bush - are as apposite as ever and, controversially, there are two magnificent essays on the Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh - who entered into an extraordinary correspondence with Vidal when he was in gaol - to the recent terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.