Partly funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the exhibit included a now-infamous photograph by Andres Serrano that showed a crucifix submerged in Serrano’s own urine. Incensed, Wildmon sent a copy of the photo to every member of Congress, setting off a battle led by the Christian right over what contemporary art could be and who should receive federal funding for it.

Isaac Butler, an author and cultural historian, walks through this and other pivotal moments in the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s in his new book, “The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art and the Birth of America’s Culture Wars.”

Butler spoke to the Book Review’s editor, Gilbert Cruz, about how these fights unfolded and what they meant for the artists themselves. He sat down to write the book, he said, when “it really felt like the culture wars of the ’80s and ’90s that I grew up in were repeating again.”

Books and plays discussed on this episode:

“The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art and the Birth of America’s Culture Wars,” by Isaac Butler

“Measure for Measure,” by William Shakespeare

“Transgressions: The Offences of Art,” by Anthony Julius

“It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic,” by Jack Lowery

“The Devil Finds Work,” by James Baldwin

“Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz,” by Cynthia Carr

“Elia Kazan: A Life,” by Elia Kazan

“Fear No Pharaoh: American Jews, the Civil War and the Fight to End Slavery,” by Richard Kreitner

“The Kindness of Strangers,” by Salka Viertel

“The Talmud: A Biography,” by Barry Scott Wimpfheimer

“My Last Sigh,” by Luis Buñuel

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One of the people who voted on our best books list was Ryan Holiday, author of more than a dozen nonfiction books, host of the “Daily Stoic” podcast and owner of the Painted Porch Bookshop in Bastrop, Texas. We recently invited him on the “Book Review” podcast to talk about “The Road,” and how its meaning changed for him after he became a father.

Books Discussed on This Episode:

“The Road” by Cormac McCarthy

“No Country for Old Men” by Cormac McCarthy

“All the Pretty Horses” by Cormac McCarthy

“Blood Meridian” by Cormac McCarthy

“The Odyssey” by Homer

“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“The Children of Men” by P. D. James

“The Plague” by Albert Camus

“Revolutionary Road” by Richard Yates

“Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius

“Of Boys and Men” by Richard Reeves

“Outdoor Kids in an Inside World” by Steven Rinella

“Letter to His Father” by Franz Kafka

“Range” by David Epstein

“Good Inside” by Becky Kennedy

“Wild Dark Shore” by Charlotte McConaghy

“Death Be Not Proud” by John Gunther

“The Revenant” by Michael Punke

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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