The seventh volume of what Vidal has entitled the Narratives of Empire. In The Golden Age, which offers a fictionalized version of American politics from 1940 to 2000, his main charge is that one of the most revered of all 20th-century presidents, Franklin D. Roosevelt, provoked, and then failed to warn his commanders about, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. His deception was brought about by a poll which revealed that 60 per cent of Americans were opposed to any foreign war.