The Last Empire is a collection of provocative, witty, and eloquent essays by Gore Vidal about all things USA. In more than two dozen essays, Vidal brings his keen intellect, experience, and razor-edged wit to bear on an astonishing range of subjects, offering incisive observations about terrorism, civil liberties, the CIA, Al Gore, and the Clintons - interwoven with a rich tapestry of personal anecdote, critical insight, and historical detail. Erudite, forever curious, argumentative, irascible, and often very funny, Gore writes that the United States is, "a unique society in which we have free enterprise for the poor and socialism for the rich." The Last Empire is a sweeping coda to the still-existing conflicted vision of the American dream - leaving no need to imagine what trenchant barbs Vidal would have uttered concerning the state and level of discourse of American society right now.