The acclaimed author of The Method reveals the forgotten origins of America’s culture wars—a David-and-Goliath story of late 20th century art vs. censorship, brimming with intense drama and fierce moral urgency.
 
 It’s 1988, the final year of the Reagan presidency. The curtain is closing on the Cold War. In the absence of external adversaries, the American public is about to go to war with itself. The religious right, newly ascendant and emboldened, is determined to seize control of America’s future. And the first battles will be fought over, of all things, contemporary art.
 
 In The Perfect Moment, through meticulous research and bold storytelling, cultural historian Isaac Butler reexamines a pivotal and misunderstood era in American life. He recounts how archconservatives such as Jesse Helms, Pat Buchanan, and Pat Robertson fixed their sights on artists including Andres Serrano, Robert Mapplethorpe, David Wojnarowicz, Karen Finley, and others, capitalizing on the visual potency and provocative politics of their work to stir a nascent evangelical bloc into moral panic. Butler narrates an inspiring tale of how the artistic community banded together to fight back, even as moderate voices in Washington were sidelined and steamrolled. Indeed, it was in this fight, Butler argues, that the far right devised and perfected the repertoire of tactics it still uses today to whip its base into frenzy over everything from the books in school libraries to the teaching of American history to the provision of medical care.
 
 The Perfect Moment is an incisive account of a crucial period in our history that has profoundly shaped the world we live in—and a stirring and passionate ode to the power of the creative spirit that is needed more now than ever.