Burr (1973), by Gore Vidal, is an historical novel challenging the traditional iconography of American history via narrative and memoir by Aaron Burr, the third vice president; he also was an Army officer and combat veteran of the Revolutionary War, a lawyer and senator from New York. In an 1804 duel, while still vice president, Burr killed Alexander Hamilton, who had been the country's first Treasury secretary.
Burr is the first sequential novel...
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Burr (1973), by Gore Vidal, is an historical novel challenging the traditional iconography of American history via narrative and memoir by Aaron Burr, the third vice president; he also was an Army officer and combat veteran of the Revolutionary War, a lawyer and senator from New York. In an 1804 duel, while still vice president, Burr killed Alexander Hamilton, who had been the country's first Treasury secretary.
Burr is the first sequential novel of the author's seven-novel Narratives of Empire series. It portrays its eponymous anti-hero as a fascinating and honourable gentleman, and skewers most of his contemporaries, e.g. George Washington, an incompetent general who lost most of his battles; Thomas Jefferson, with whom Burr tied for the presidency in the election of 1800, as a fey, especially dark and pedantic hypocrite who schemed and bribed witnesses in support of a false charge of treason against Burr after almost losing the election to him; and Alexander Hamilton, the bastard...
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