SOURCE: "All That You Can Be," in The Nation, New York, Vol. 256, No. 22, June 7, 1993, pp. 806, 810, 812.

An American educator, historian, and critic, D'Emilio is author of Making Trouble: Essays on Gay History, Politics, and the University (1992). In the following mixed review, he praises Shilts for placing his facts within an historical context, but faults the "lack of balance" in Conduct Unbecoming, which D'Emilio believes results in a limited perspective on gay life in the U.S. military.

Social movements, in order to succeed, require hard work, perseverance, solid organization and a healthy does of mysterious good fortune. In November 1990, when some scattered local activists floated the idea of another march on Washington for lesbian and gay rights, who could have predicted that a sympathetic Democrat would be in the White House or that in his first week in office the ban on gays in the military would become front-page...