"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 "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 "Butler ignites an urgent signal flare, illuminating how decades of coordinated efforts to stifle free expression snowballed into our present moment. Scrupulously researched and blissfully told, this gonzo history of American art and attrition proves that Butler is one of the most exciting writers of non-fiction today." -- Ethan Hawke "An engaging and deeply researched book that deftly maps the far right's attack on art and free speech in the 80s and 90s to the current day. The antagonistic players may have changed, but their tactics remain the same. Butler's storytelling is as strong as his reporting, showing us that while we can't undo the past, we can learn from it and reshape our future." -- Tricia Romano, author of THE FREAKS CAME OUT TO WRITE "With dozens of incisive portraits wound within a swiftly moving central narrative, Isaac Butler illuminates one of the most important histories of the past sixty years: the struggles for meaning and identity in American culture and politics. It's essential reading for followers of art history, political history or cultural criticism.

The Perfect Moment helps us understand the forces that roil our present fractured moment and why the arts remain essential in defining American society." -- Nayland Blake, artist and author of MY STUDIO IS A DUNGEON IS THE STUDIO "Isaac Butler is the Ernie Pyle of the 1980s culture wars, and The Perfect Moment is a clear-eyed chronicle of the skirmishes, sorties, and struggles that have made up the conservative movement's all-out war on art--and artists--in America." -- June Thomas, author of A PLACE OF OUR OWN "Entertaining and illuminating." -- The New Yorker on THE METHOD "Engaging and meticulously researched . Butler's history is an indispensable account of a revolution in acting that ramified beyond the theater." -- Los Angeles Times on THE METHOD "Meticulous, immersive." -- The Atlantic on THE METHOD "Marvelous . A vital book about how to make political art that offers lasting solace in times of great trouble, and wisdom to audiences in the years that follow.

" -- The Washington Post on THE WORLD ONLY SPINS FORWARD.