How long does it take to read Coming Out Under Fire?
The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two
Allan Bérubé, Victor Bevine
Coming Out Under Fire by Allan Bérubé, Victor Bevine takes about 6 hours 55 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 6 hours 55 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1990. 377 pages, about 103,675 words.
14 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 11 hours 31 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 6 hours 55 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 4 hours 19 minutes |
The page count is the median across 13 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
During World War II, as the United States called on its citizens to serve in unprecedented numbers, the presence of gay Americans in the armed forces increasingly conflicted with the expanding antihomosexual policies and procedures of the military. In Coming Out Under Fire, Allan Bérubé examines in depth and detail these social and political confrontation--not as a story of how the military victimized homosexuals, but as a story of how a dynamic power relationship developed between gay citizens and their government, transforming them both. Drawing on GIs' wartime letters, extensive interviews with gay veterans, and declassified military documents, Bérubé thoughtfully constructs a startling history of the two wars gay military men and women fough--one for America and another as homosexuals within the military. Bérubé's book, the inspiration for the 1995 Peabody Award-winning documentary film of the same name, has become a classic since it was published in 1990, just three years prior to the controversial "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which has continued to serve as an uneasy compromise between gays and the military. With a new foreword by historians John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, this book remains a valuable contribution to the history of World War II, as well as to the ongoing debate regarding the role of gays in the U.S. military.
Subjects: Armed Forces, Gays, History, Gay military personnel, Gay Participation, United States. Army
