Book Description
The only study of gay male history covering the United
States since World War I. Based on hundreds of
interviews, new and classic texts, and little-known
archival sources, an award-winning writer offers the
first narrative history to consider signal moments,
general trends, and the multiple meanings of "gay
identity" in the whole United States from World War
I to the AIDS era and "queer" activism.
The most readable, authoritative, and comprehensive
investigation ever, The Other Side of Silence combines
history and anecdote, politics and theory to reveal the
personalities and textures of a largely unknown culture.
A dramatic chronicle of seventy-five years of persecution
and accomplishment, the book addresses both in equal
detail: witch hunts in schools and the military, crusades
of psychiatrists, the resistance long before Stonewall,
the inspiring pioneers and activists.
From Newport and the private-party networks of
Nebraska and Florida's Emma Jones Society to gay rodeos,
athletes, and support groups, here are first-hand
accounts of what it has meant (and might mean in the
future) to be a sexual outsider in the United States.