Stonewall by Martin Bauml Duberman Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Stonewall
Book Review: Great book, just needs reformating
Summary: 3 Stars
I've grown up hearing so much about "Stonewall" in the news, so I was excited to read the 'inside story' about the riots which essentially ignited today's public visibility.
The book provides background and aftermath information on Stonewall. It describes the years leading up to and immediately after the event to give readers a powerful foundation for today's policy agenda.
Providing additional information, the selected pictures are also very helpful; I finally saw what the Stonewall Inn had looked like. That people were congregating at an underground dump made a very big impression on somebody who grew up seeing gay pride parades and `out' public figures. I now fully understand the political meaning of `out'.
However, I am just not crazy about the format which is used to present this important piece of American history. Duberman periodically switches between people's personal stories.
At least to me, this felt like walking into a room with a conversation already in progress and then trying to follow along. It makes reading this otherwise great book unnecessarily tedious. Another edition of this book needs to just tell the story without trying to switch around between personal testimonies.
Book Review: Interesting study and fascinating people
Summary: 4 Stars
As a straight female raised in the bible belt, my level of education about the Gay Rights movement was at best minimal. We learned about Women's Rights and Civil Rights in school, but never Gay Rights. Anyway, I became very interested in Gay Literature earlier this year, and was often confused by references to Stonewall and other historical events/places/people. Mr. Duberman's book, which, to be honest, I picked because it was the only book of its type available at the bookstore here in my small Texas town, was interesting and a fast, entertaining read. I especially liked the way Duberman followed a small group of people over a long period of time. Learning about an historical event through the eyes of people who were actually there gave me a far better understanding than a bland, general history might have.
Book Review: Interesting, But Misnamed And Oddly Lacking
Summary: 3 Stars
For those unfamiliar with the word, "Stonewall" was a gay bar of the 1960s Greenwich Village district in New York. Like most gay bars of its place and time, it was mafia operated and kept its doors open through repeated pay-offs to a corrupt police beaurocracy; even so, in an era when gays and lesbians were considered intrinsically criminal it was subject to repeated raids and its staff and customers were often arrested.
In the early morning hours of 28 June 1969, police officers conducted such a raid--but instead of encountering a fearful, easily managed crowd, they ran afoul of a handful of people who had had enough of police intimidation and harassment. The resulting confrontation spilled into the street and quickly exploded into a full-blow riot that continued on and off for several days.
Although it received little coverage by mainstream media, the incident was quickly recognized by many in the gay and lesbian community as a turning point, and the gay rights movement suddenly became activistic in tone. That activism would shape the drive toward decriminalization, an increasing openess, and a determination to obtain equal rights that continues to direct gay and lesbian issues to this day.
Given its central role in a controversial social movement, the Stonewall riots are more than worthy of a detailed examination by a major historian, and certainly Martin Duberman is all of that, a highly respected academian and noted author who is particularly noted for his documentation of the gay experience in 20th Century America. But in truth, you will find out very little about the riots from his 1993 book STONEWALL. In a 282 page text, neither Stonewall nor the riots are mentioned until page 181--and Dubberman's account of the riots is all of twenty pages long.
So what, then, is this book actually about? STONEWALL attempts to place the riots in historical context, and as such it is actually about the earlier gay and lesbian organizations, movememts, and leaders who by accident or design helped lead the gay community to critical mass. In an effort to render a sprawling subject more manageable, Dubberman focuses on six individuals: Yvonne Flowers, Jim Fouratt, Foster Gunnison Jr., Karla Kay, Sylvia Ray Rivera, and Craig Rodwell. In each instance Dubberman presents us with a general biography of each, interweaving one with another, showing how each person drifted into the movement--and then uses the overall narrative to create a portrait of gays and lesbians in the pre-Stonewall era and the impact the Stonewall riots had on their individual lives.
It is an interesting concept, but there is a significant problem. While all their stories are interesting, several of the people involved were neither part of the pre-Stonewall movement nor a factor in the riot, and the result is less of the hard fact that we want to see in favor of an excessively "political correct" array of characters whose stories never really seem to add up to any cohesive statement. While it will be interesting to any one who wishes to read in depth on the subject, this is not the text on the 20th Century gay rights movement with which to begin or end your reading.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Book Review: Interesting, readable, and important
Summary: 5 Stars
Yes, this is nonfiction. No, it is not in the least boring. By taking the history of a truly legendary event and splitting it up into 6 different personal histories, it becomes one big story made up of littler stories (obviously). Like an intricate quilt...each of the stories or patches is interesting and exciting enough but when added to others it becomes a really great story (quilt). Okay...that was probably a really corny analogy and not deserving of this awesome book.
Obviously Stonewall was the defining moment of the early gay rights movement so at times it can probably take on mythic proportions but when told through the eyes and mouths of these six altogether different and unique people it never becomes anything more than the human struggle and triumph that it was.
Comparing the events that happened in this book, and today, you have to be a fool to think that nothing has been accomplished. So much has. But so much more remains to be done. Pick up this book and discover the experience that is Stonewall.
Book Review: Not history, but interviews with dubiously relevant people.
Summary: 1 Stars
This isn't really history. It's interviews with six people, of whom only two (Craig Rodwell and Foster Gunnison) really contributed anything to the homophile/gay liberation movement. The other four were, at best, peripheral. This book doesn't convey the excitement of the early years of the Gay Liberation Front -- the radical vision, the militant demonstrations, the personal experimentation. A much better account can be found in the older book by Don Teal, _The Gay Militants_.