-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America's Culture Wars
by Isaac Butler
The prize-winning author of The Method reveals the forgotten origins of America's culture wars-a story of late 20th century art vs. censorship, brimming with intense drama and fierce moral urgency.
It's 1988, the final year of the Reagan presidency, and the curtain is closing on the Cold War. In the absence of external adversaries, the American public is on the precipice of war with itself. The religious right, newly ascendant and emboldened, is determined to seize control of America's future. And the first battles will be fought over, of all things, contemporary art.
In The Perfect Moment, cultural historian Isaac Butler reexamines this pivotal, misunderstood American era. Archconservatives like Jesse Helms, Pat Buchanan, and Pat Robertson fixed their sights on artists including Andres Serrano, Robert Mapplethorpe, David Wojnarowicz, and Karen Finley, capitalizing on the provocative politics of their work to stir a nascent evangelical coalition into moral panic. It was at this moment, Butler argues, that the far right perfected the tactics it still uses today to whip its base into frenzy-from banning books and sanitizing American history, to spreading medical misinformation. All too relevant today, The Perfect Moment is an incisive and meticulously researched account of this crucial period and a stirring ode to the power of the creative spirit.
"Critic and historian Butler offers a comprehensive overview of the religious right's targeting of artists and arts funding in the 1980s and '90s...Throughout, Butler incisively highlights the spiraling damage inflicted by the tepid responses of arts supporters like NEA chairman John Frohnmayer, who, desperate to protect the Endowment, agreed to diminish artists' freedom of expression, and of the liberal establishment as a whole, which squeamishly demurred from defending works...[The Perfect Moment] makes for a dramatic retelling of a sea change in American arts and politics." —Publishers Weekly
"An absorbing autopsy of America's first culture wars...Butler recasts the battles for artistic freedom of speech fought in the late-20th century, 'the World War I of American arts and letters,' as a sobering prelude to today's gloves-off assault on the arts...A richly detailed genealogy of the continuing battle for artistic freedom in the U.S." —Kirkus Reviews
"Butler, director, podcaster, and author of The Method, traces this fraught era from a fight over textbooks in West Virginia in 1974 to the end of the twentieth century and beyond...Butler's insights into the end of the Cold War and the AIDS crisis, interviews with many of those involved, and excerpts from critical analysis of art pieces round out this freshly relevant exploration of a pivotal time for the arts in America." —Booklist
This information about The Perfect Moment was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Isaac Butler is the coauthor (with Dan Kois) of The World Only Spins Forward: The Ascent of Angels in America, which NPR named one of the best books of 2018. Butler's writing has appeared in New York magazine, Slate, the Guardian, American Theatre, and other publications. For Slate, he created and hosted Lend Me Your Ears, a podcast about Shakespeare and politics, and currently co-hosts Working, a podcast about the creative process. His work as a director has been seen on stages throughout the United States. He is the co-creator, with Darcy James Argue and Peter Nigrini, of Real Enemies, a multimedia exploration of conspiracy theories in the American psyche, which was named one of the best live events of 2015 by the New York Times and has been adapted into a feature-length film. Butler holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Minnesota and teaches theater history and performance at the New School and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn.
If you liked The Perfect Moment, try these:
by Sophie Gilbert
Published 2026
From Atlantic critic and Pulitzer Prize finalist Sophie Gilbert, a blazing critique of early aughts pop culture.
by Joan Dempsey
Published 2017
Compulsively readable, This Is How It Begins is a timely novel about free speech, the importance of empathy, and the bitter consequences of long-buried secrets.
by Paul Staiti
Published 2017
A fascinating look at how the art world viewed the American Revolution, and how their work still effects the way we view those events today.
Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
