Download Audiobook Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington by James Kirchick in English

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“Not since Robert Caro’s Years of Lyndon Johnson have I been so riveted by a piece of historical past. Secret Metropolis isn’t homosexual historical past. It’s American historical past.” —George StephanopoulosWashington, D.C., has at all times been a metropolis of secrets and techniques. Few have been extra dramatic than those revealed in James Kirchick’s Secret Metropolis.For many years, the specter of homosexuality haunted Washington. The mere suggestion that an individual is perhaps homosexual destroyed reputations, ended careers, and ruined lives. On the peak of the Chilly Struggle, concern of homosexuality turned intertwined with the rising risk of worldwide communism, resulting in a purge of homosexual males and lesbians from the federal authorities. Within the fevered ambiance of political Washington, the key “too loathsome to say” held monumental, terrifying energy.Using hundreds of pages of declassified paperwork, interviews with over 100 folks, and materials unearthed from presidential libraries and archives across the nation, Secret Metropolis is a chronicle of American politics like no different. Starting with the tragic story of Sumner Welles, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s sensible diplomatic advisor and the person on the middle of “the best nationwide scandal for the reason that existence of the US,” James Kirchick illuminates how homosexuality formed every successive presidential administration by the tip of the 20th century. Cultural and political nervousness over homosexual folks sparked a decades-long witch hunt, impacting all the things from the rivalry between the CIA and the FBI to the ascent of Joseph McCarthy, the wrestle for Black civil rights, and the rise of the conservative motion. Amongst different revelations, Kirchick tells of the World Struggle II–period homosexual spymaster who pioneered seduction as a device of American espionage, the devoted aide whom Lyndon Johnson handled as a son but deserted as soon as his homosexuality was found, and the way allegations of a “gay ring” controlling Ronald Reagan almost derailed his 1980 election victory.Magisterial in scope and intimate intimately, Secret Metropolis will perpetually remodel our understanding of American historical past.A Macmillan Audio manufacturing from Henry Holt and Firm