Gore Vidal has always been interested in origins. In Julian, he dealt with the origins of Christian Europe. In the Aaron Burr trilogy he looked at the origins of modern America and in the two Breckenridge books he examined, in satirical vein, the origins of gender. In the present work [Creation] set in the age of Pericles, which had a greater abundance of prophets and thinkers than any other period, he explores the origins of almost everything….

This is a very long book but, considering its vast scope, it is not nearly long enough…. Still, within the work's compass, Gore Vidal attempts to display, and illuminate, many of the political, theological, philosophical and historical phenomena which can be said to have at least prefigured everything that has come since. (p. 26)

Mr. Vidal is a fine writer and, as far as I can judge, a prodigious scholar but he...