"A masterpiece of historical research and intellectual
analysis that creates many windows into both a vanished world and the
one that emerged from it, the one we live in now." --Alexander
Chee
Twenty years in
the making, Sarah Schulman's Let the Record Show is the most
comprehensive political history ever assembled of ACT UP and American
AIDS activism
In just six years,
ACT UP, New York, a broad and unlikely coalition of activists from
all races, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds, changed the world.
Armed with rancor, desperation, intelligence, and creativity, it took
on the AIDS crisis with an indefatigable, ingenious, and multifaceted
attack on the corporations, institutions, governments, and
individuals who stood in the way of AIDS treatment for all. They
stormed the FDA and NIH in Washington, DC, and started needle
exchange programs in New York; they took over Grand Central Terminal
and fought to change the legal definition of AIDS to include women;
they transformed the American insurance industry, weaponized art and
advertising to push their agenda, and battled—and beat—The New
York Times, the Catholic Church, and the pharmaceutical industry.
Their activism, in its complex and intersectional power, transformed
the lives of people with AIDS and the bigoted society that had
abandoned them.
Based on more than
two hundred interviews with ACT UP members and rich with lessons for
today’s activists, Let the Record Show is a revelatory
exploration—and long-overdue reassessment—of the coalition’s
inner workings, conflicts, achievements, and ultimate fracture.
Schulman, one of the most revered queer writers and thinkers of her
generation, explores the how and the why, examining, with her
characteristic rigor and bite, how a group of desperate outcasts
changed America forever, and in the process created a livable future
for generations of people across the world.