Harvey Milk has been the subject of numerous books and movies, including the Academy Award—winning documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk. His life is also the basis of a major motion picture, Milk, starring Sean Penn. Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group.
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Add a library card to your account to borrow titles, place holds, and add titles to your wish list. Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Book Release date: October 14, Availability can change throughout the month based on the library's budget.
You can still place a hold on the title, and your hold will be automatically filled as soon as the title is available again. The OverDrive Read format of this ebook has professional narration that plays while you read in your browser.
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If you're still having trouble, follow these steps to sign in. Add a library card to your account to borrow titles, place holds, and add titles to your wish list. Have a card? The police, essentially unchanged by the shifting sentiment in city government, start a new wave of harrassment and beatings of gays. Dianne Feinstein hems and haws over whom to appoint to replace Milk on the Board of Supervisors, being fair-minded at some times and voicing odd prejudices at others.
The prosecution of Dan White is appallingly feeble, and in another wink-nudge passage Shilts all but accuses the District Attorney's office of deliberately concealing vital but embarrassing evidence: the political machinations that culminated in the loss of White's supervisor seat, i. The reader is hardly surprised at the outcome: White was convicted only of voluntary manslaughter and served less than six years in jail for the premeditated slayings of two men.
At the verdict's announcement, a dispatcher sings "Danny Boy" over the police radio, the least of many overt examples of police approval of White's actions.
Milk's dream of gays and straights living side by side is tarnished in general by the riots following White's trial, and wrecked specifically by the continued straight evacuation of the Castro neighborhood. Even in the s Shilts saw the Castro gays become apathetic about politics and civil rights.
Gays living in the cities had the dream of equality already realized for them in many ways, while those living in the rest of America were too few and too isolated to band together to help themselves.
This apathy arguably persists today; young people have too much on their minds for abstract notions of equality and progress to warrant more than an occasional monetary donation or an article shared on Facebook. Milk was a rare man at a rare time. We haven't seen his like since.
Jan 16, Scott rated it it was amazing. For those of you who have seen Sean Penn in Milk, the movie only provided glimpse into the complex man and the times he lived in. The details of early homosexuality of how gay and lesbians were treated in San Francisco offer insight on a subject, which sadly I knew little about.
Shilts attention to detail helps create a historical map of how things were, how they changed when Harvey arrived in San Francisco and the legacy he left behind after his murder. Reading The Mayor of Castro Street further reinforces this same notion. We live in society which just fought a major battle over Prop 8 in California, which banned homosexuals the equal right to marry.
Harvey fought against Prop 6, which banned teachers, doctors and others, professionals if they were openly gay. Harvey preached of hope, as a nation we just elected a President who preached of change, hopefully this time around we get the message and it sticks.
There are so many things I could say about this incredible book but I will leave it on these two thoughts. It is rare that a book makes me cry. Like the movie, the section detailing the murder of Milk made me cry. It was one of those few instances, when you even though you know the outcome, you are compelled to pay attention to every detail as Shilts recreates them. Finally, I think this an important book for everyone to read.
This book offers hope and hope that as a society we can better ourselves and the society we live in. Well-written biography of Harvey Milk. Shilts eschews the hagiographic approach adopted in the movie Milk to provide a more rounded view of Milk's life, his life's work and his legacy. Shilts portrays Milk with all his fire and passion for life: both personal and political.
We see his skill as a politician with an inate sense of theatre and of justice, who built a broad support base that included not just the gay population but small business, blue collar industry and other minority groups. We a Well-written biography of Harvey Milk.
We also see the growth of the gay rights movement which Shilts rightly situates in the context of the social and economic changes taking place in San Francisco and the Castro at the time. And we see how gay sexual and political empowerment fed into Milk's own personal outsized life.
This edition comes with the full text of four of Milk's most famous speeches, including his Hope Speech and his recorded political will.
While this book wasn't technically perfect, it did fire up a range of emotions in me especially toward the end rocketing it from the 4 star category to 5 star category. It was amazing how sad and angry I could get when I already knew the general outline of how things turned out. Some thoughts: 1 I had never really understood the rioting that happens after many heinous legal verdicts before excepts perhaps in a abstract way. Reading about the White Night riots after the Dan White trial and verdi While this book wasn't technically perfect, it did fire up a range of emotions in me especially toward the end rocketing it from the 4 star category to 5 star category.
Reading about the White Night riots after the Dan White trial and verdict , I could viscerally understand them. This included the White Night riots and the minutia of politics in California in the 60s and 70s among others. View 1 comment. Since Shilts was a journalist and an author, his narration is gripping. For many years, I have attempted to understand the experiences of my gay brothers and sisters so I can be a better ally.
And books like these are a good way to begin. I had seen Milk, but I liked learning more about him as a person, as opposed to the skin-deep version we got in the movie. Feb 01, Shahine Ardeshir rated it it was ok. This is a great story about a tremendous personality, but unfortunately, not a very good book. Harvey Milk is a legend, and the best thing that the author did here was to bring his personality to life in these pages.
As the book went on, I liked him more and more, I was in his corner, I wanted him to succeed and I was deeply sad at his end, though I knew it was coming. Unfortunately, however, his charisma wasn't enough to hold my attention through the book. And the focus on his life faltered and This is a great story about a tremendous personality, but unfortunately, not a very good book.
And the focus on his life faltered and become more and more sporadic as the book went on. Perhaps this is because Randy Shilts was well-intentioned but overly ambitious in everything he wanted to cover.
I feel like he couldn't decide whether the focus of his book was Harvey or the gay rights movement. Granted, the two were certainly interlinked, but as a reader, it felt like he couldn't decide, shifting the narrative from Harvey's perspective to suddenly including wide-ranging events that occurred elsewhere, without providing adequate context or linkage.
As a result, the book wandered tremendously, more so as it went on, with new characters introduced virtually every three pages. As a reader, I found it hard to keep up, and was left confused and eventually bored. Another problem I had was that Shilts assumed I knew a lot more about American state-level politics than I actually did.
I don't know whether it's because I'm not American or not politically minded — either way, it added to the confusion. I end the way I begun: In these pages was outlined the life of a great man, for whom we should all have tremendous respect.
That, however, didn't save this from being a very scattered, overly ambitious and somewhat boring book. I would strongly recommend you google and learn more about Harvey Milk: His was an inspirational and important life, and we could all learn something from it.
But reading this book is not the best way to do that, in my opinion. Jun 29, Alexandra rated it it was amazing. In an effort to continue my education this year in history that is not straight, white, cis, etc. When I found that Randy Shilts had a biography of him, I immediately chose this. I had a steep learning curve f In an effort to continue my education this year in history that is not straight, white, cis, etc.
I had a steep learning curve for most of the content of this. I also did not get much in college, though that is due more to my own lopsided pursuits in my electives, which is regrettable, as I minored in history I gleefully bogged myself down in Tudor England The first time I heard of Harvey Milk was when the Sean Penn movie came out, and I vaguely remember thinking he was a fictional character, which is appalling.
I was expecting a straightforward biography of him, and what I got was so much more. Reading this was, from beginning to end, like watching an archer release an arrow from a bow. I fixated on it, mesmerized, watching it spiral, gain momentum, and travel, until it pierced a bullseye at the pivotal moment the assassination and then vibrated violently and tensely with the after affect of its landing.
This book was at once an intense, sometimes invasive, and thorough examination of Harvey Milk's life, but it was also a smooth education in Castro Street itself, the origins and power of the gay political movement, and even the nuances of politics within the gay community that Milk represented.
I was fascinated, humbled, and enraged by all that I learned. Despite it being a produce of , it is obviously scathingly relevant today. If the tales of injustice and homophobia Milk and his movement fought against were not sobering enough, the detailed illustration of Dan White's trial, and how abysmal the miscarriage of justice was, drove the points home. This is the latest in a long line of historical media I've consumed lately that focuses on the late s, and what has been eye opening to me is how devastating conservative backlash is to true progress.
The sheer revolution of women's rights, gay rights, civil rights, etc. It is haunting and harrowing to know that history repeats itself in such a way. Shilts is an outstanding journalist, and I would not have trusted my education on this topic to anyone but him. The sheer attention to detail he gives when ensuring he tells the whole story is something that seems to be missing more and more lately -- and Shilts is always able to tell the whole story without also making both sides equal.
He is fully aware that "sharing both sides" is not the same as "giving equal credence to both sides" -- a feat that was showcased brilliantly in "And the Band Played On" and is no less incredible here. In his notes, he states: "I can only answer that I tried to tell the truth and, if not be objective, at least be fair; history is not served when reporters prize trepidation and propriety over the robust journalistic duty to tell the whole story.
I look forward to reading his third and final book in the near future. He is a credit to journalism the likes of which is rarely seen. And it's a damn shame that Harvey Milk, too, was taken from us, a man who -- one can tell from his speeches alone -- was perhaps one of America's truest patriots.
Harvey Milk's remarkable life, including his transformation from Goldwater conservative to gay rights activist, campaigning for office, and finally becoming the first openly gay elected official in California, would be plenty fascinating without its tragic end.
Shilts brings to life the LGBT scene of s San Francisco right along with Milk himself - a complex figure the author portrays in depth, not always flatteringly. In fact, I was a little surprised to find I didn't find the man all that Harvey Milk's remarkable life, including his transformation from Goldwater conservative to gay rights activist, campaigning for office, and finally becoming the first openly gay elected official in California, would be plenty fascinating without its tragic end.
In fact, I was a little surprised to find I didn't find the man all that likable, his admirable political stance notwithstanding. An illuminating read about a major figure in LGBT history. So I grew up in the Bay Area and was in the same school as Mayor Moscone's son when the mayor was shot. I couldn't have cared less about SF politics in those days so this book was great for learning about the intricacies of the political change happening in the late 70s in San Francisco.
So I learned a lot. A lot of info about the personal lives of Milk. More than I needed. Jul 07, Kirby rated it it was amazing. So many things to say on this one! Long review. Harvey Milk is super fascinating, period. In some ways, he was a consummate politician, shaking hands everywhere he went, obsessed with the concept of "political th So many things to say on this one! In some ways, he was a consummate politician, shaking hands everywhere he went, obsessed with the concept of "political theatre," forging alliances, getting the media to present the story he wanted told But he was also a real idealist and a frustratingly stubborn public representative for the underserved community, which is not that easy to find in a big city anymore.
It sounds like he never compromised on a damn thing when it came to the big stuff. Half the time I don't agree with them, and the other half, I may agree with part of it, but I don't really like the person because they're just smarmy or whatever.
And you can definitely see from this book that Harvey Milk was obsessed with winning votes and furthering his agenda, but the agenda was always about fundamentally important community development issues -- expanding rights for the vulnerable, fighting corporate interests, and developing cities from the inside instead of the outside. Another thing I liked about this book is that it presented a neutral profile of a politician who didn't have a pearly white chaste personal life. I sincerely don't give a single solitary shit what politicians do in their personal life, as long as they're not hypocritizing against their own political platforms or committing some sort of crime.
This book unabashedly shows Harvey Milk as a free-lovin' guy who had a lot of boyfriends even when he had serious boyfriends , and again, it literally had no effect on his work as a Supervisor. Randy Shilts was also open about the fact that he was pretty demanding and not that cool sometimes, so I appreciated that an honest look at that. I would also highly recommend reading the speeches in the appendix because they're truly awesome take-no-shit calls for action.
At the same time, those speeches were a big bummer because he actually talked a lot about non-exclusively gay issues like fighting big business and tourist interests, making San Francisco an accessible place to live, developing neighborhood-centric city plans Such is the legacy of those with unpopular ideas, I guess. What I was not expecting from this book was the final 50 pages, and this is because of my own ignorance of what happened in the aftermath of Milk's death.
It recalls a lot of ridiculous non-murder verdict in the past 20 years including One small note is that the edition I read wasn't really updated from its original publication date so I had to do some Googling afterwards to find out what everyone was up to. Overall a really fascinating political read. Jan 19, Fishface rated it it was amazing Shelves: local-history , biography , true-crime , history , favorites , advocacy , jonestown , community-organization. This book explains why.
We learn all about Harvey Milk and what a big personality he had, what a terrific advocate he was -- not just for gay rights, but for all the rights of anyone within range -- and what a gifted grassroots politician he was. Shilts also paints a wonderful portrait of the many, many changes going on in San Francisco at the time, some of them quite ominous. I got a totally new perspective on Dianne Feinstein, among many other characters in this story. Beautifully written in Randy Shilts's crystal-clear style.
Don't miss it. Jun 19, J Nick rated it really liked it. I love Harvey Milk. I really do. But after reading this book, I think I like him a little less. I love that Randy Shilts can write about my hero, flaws and all, and still leave me humbled. Humbled that even the people we idolize are actually, like all of us, flawed human beings. When in San Francisco one reads about its slain royalty.
Randy Shilts, an American journalist and author wrote this biography. Harvey Bernard Milk was an American politician and the first openly gay elected official in the history of California, where he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Although he was one of America's first openly gay public officials, San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk would probably have escaped biographical attention if he had not been gunned down at age 49 by the same man who shot mayor George Moscone.
Martyrdom catapulted Milk into mythic status. Milk's career had become a metaphor for the homosexual experience in America and a portrait of a gay everyman — from the early sense of being different and living a double life to arriving on Castro Street and coming out and gay hippiedom in the late Sixties, which ended up in tragedy — his assassination. Shilts' interwoven account of the emergence of San Francisco as a gay Mecca is well documented as he argues that that Milk was not merely a gay politician, but an urban populist who believed passionately that a gay person's success in public life would be a symbol of hope to all the disenfranchised.
Whether Milk could have successfully crossed over as a politician is unclear, though he managed sometimes to forge alliances with unlikely groups and he was both an adept ward politician and a virtuoso manipulator of the media.
Shilts manages to balance the public Harvey Milk with an account of his private life — including some disastrous lovers, that is honest and illuminating without being lurid.
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