American History Too!

We return for the fourteenth episode of American History Too! to discuss a horrifying and shameful period in US history:  the outbreak and response to the HIV/AIDS crisis during the 1980s. 

Academic impartiality is at a premium as we delve into social and cultural reasons behind the US government’s failure to tame the spread of the deadly virus.  We also consider the important cultural touchstones that HIV/AIDS inspired and also the evolution of gay rights in the US.

For those interested, the British broadcast about AIDS that begins the show can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SqRNUUOk7s 

The broadcast stood in stark contrast to official US silence on the issue.

We’ll be back in a couple of weeks to start our series entitled ‘The Revolutionary Sixties?’

Thanks again for listening,

Mark & Malcolm                 

Contact at @ahtoopodast or ahtoo@outlook.com

Reading List

Jennifer Brier, ‘“Save Our Kids, Keep AIDS Out”: Anti-AIDS Activism and the Legacy of Community Control in Queens, New York’, Journal of Social History, 39:4 (Summer, 2006), 965-987

Elizabeth Fee and Nancy Krieger, ‘The Emerging Histories of AIDS: Three Successive Paradigms’, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 15:3 (1993), 459-487

Randy Shilts, And the band played on:  politics, people, and the AIDS epidemic (New York:  Penguin, 1987)

Films and Documentaries

And the Band Played On , HBO film based on Randy Shilts book (1993)

Dir. Jonathan Demme, Philadelphia (1993)

Angels in America, HBO miniseries (2003)

‘The Age of Aids,’ PBS Frontline (2006) – numerous interviews available on website.