Overview
The New York Times Bestseller
A New York Times Notable Book of 2022
Named one of Vanity Fair's āBest Books of 2022ā
āNot since Robert Caroās Years of Lyndon Johnson have I been so riveted by a work of history. Secret City is not gay history. It is American history.ā
āGeorge Stephanopoulos
Washington, D.C., has always been a city of secrets. Few have been more dramatic than the ones revealed in James Kirchickās Secret City.
For decades, the specter of homosexuality haunted Washington. The mere suggestion that a person might be gay destroyed reputations, ended careers, and ruined lives. At the height of the Cold War, fear of homosexuality became intertwined with the growing threat of international communism, leading to a purge of gay men and lesbians from the federal government. In the fevered atmosphere of political Washington, the secret ātoo loathsome to mentionā held enormous, terrifying power.
Utilizing thousands of pages of declassified documents, interviews with over one hundred people, and material unearthed from presidential libraries and archives around the country, Secret City is a chronicle of American politics like no other. Beginning with the tragic story of Sumner Welles, Franklin Delano Rooseveltās brilliant diplomatic advisor and the man at the center of āthe greatest national scandal since the existence of the United States,ā James Kirchick illuminates how homosexuality shaped each successive presidential administration through the end of the twentieth century.
Cultural and political anxiety over gay people sparked a decades-long witch hunt, impacting everything from the rivalry between the CIA and the FBI to the ascent of Joseph McCarthy, the struggle for Black civil rights, and the rise of the conservative movement. Among other revelations, Kirchick tells of the World War IIāera gay spymaster who pioneered seduction as a tool of American espionage, the devoted aide whom Lyndon Johnson treated as a son yet abandoned once his homosexuality was discovered, and how allegations of a āhomosexual ringā controlling Ronald Reagan nearly derailed his 1980 election victory.
Magisterial in scope and intimate in detail, Secret City will forever transform our understanding of American history.
This book title, Secret City (The Hidden History of Gay Washington) - 9781250871466, ISBN: 9781250871466, by James Kirchick, published by Henry Holt and Co. (May 16, 2023) is available in paperback. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
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