The Naughty Nineties, David Friend
The Naughty Nineties, David Friend
List: $44.99 | Sale: $31.50
Club: $22.49

The Naughty Nineties
The Triumph of the American Libido

Author: David Friend

Narrator: David Friend

Unabridged: 26 hr 26 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Twelve

Published: 09/12/2017

Synopsis

A sexual history of the 1990s when the Baby Boomers took over Washington, Hollywood, and Madison Avenue. A definitive look at the captains of the culture wars -- and an indispensable road map for understanding how we got to the Trump Teens.

The Naughty Nineties: The Triumph of the American Libido examines the scandal-strafed decade when our public and private lives began to blur due to the rise of the web, reality television, and the wholesale tabloidization of pop culture.

In this comprehensive and often hilarious time capsule, David Friend combines detailed reporting with first-person accounts from many of the decade's singular personalities, from Anita Hill to Monica Lewinsky, Lorena Bobbitt to Heidi Fleiss, Alan Cumming to Joan Rivers, Jesse Jackson to key members of the Clinton, Dole, and Bush teams.

The Naughty Nineties also uncovers unsung sexual pioneers, from the enterprising sisters who dreamed up the Brazilian bikini wax to the scientists who, quite by accident, discovered Viagra.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Stewart on November 03, 2017

Full disclosure: I won a free copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway. Someone had way too much fun designing that cover. As the title promises, David Friend examines the many ways in which general attitudes toward sex shifted during the 1990s. Among the topics covered are: Sex in the City, the Bil......more

Goodreads review by Pat on October 01, 2017

I listened to this audiobook thinking it was a great subject. A lot certainly did happen in the 90s. But I was so annoyed by the author's condescending attitude toward people who may have different political views from his that I just couldn't go on. Not everyone who would like a change from current......more

Goodreads review by Julian on April 02, 2019

When I first saw this book, I will admit that I thought it was really cool and I was very eager to read this. At first, it was interesting, funny, and a sorta-kinda trip down memory lane. Then, as I dove deeper into the book three major issues occurred that kind of ruined it for me. 1) My god did he......more

Goodreads review by Sara on February 28, 2025

What a long listen! It's repetitive at times with long sections focused on Bill Clinton, the creation of Viagra, and how the 90s shaped our current political climate. Some correlations were a stretch, but it was an interesting read from a decade that provides me with a lot of nostalgia.......more

Goodreads review by Andrew on September 17, 2017

You'll Love It. I lived through nineties but had forgotten much of the truly crazy and seismic sexual and culturally defining moments of the decade. This book brought those events back and reminded me just how crazy that decade was. As important, this cultural history helps bring context to our curr......more

Quotes

"Vivid. [An] insightful and compulsively readable overview of America's hormonal coming of age."—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"How I loved this book! THE NAUGHTY NINETIES is a raucous ride through the 20th century's closing decade - an impressive sweep of social and cultural history in an era dominated by instant communication and gratification that presages our turbulent times. David Friend brilliantly captures the social and sexual revolution that came home to roost in the 1990s and left little to the imagination!"—Doris Kearns Goodwin, presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II and Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

"This thoughtful and ridiculously entertaining book will surely solidify the '90s as America's most embarrassing decade."—p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}span.s1 {font-kerning: none}Dave Eggers, bestselling author of A Hologram for the King and The Circle

"Sweeping...no one has put it together quite like this. Written with great brio and a tenacious attention to detail."—Vogue

"This is a rare literary gift: living, breathing history that is also a page turner, written with elegant candor and humor and passion that jump off the page. Amazing. Fabulous. I can't say enough about this book."—Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award-winning author of Brown Girl Dreaming

"A superb and important book. A guiltily entertaining, impressively scholarly, and often laugh-out-loud witty account of the decade that ended a century -- and millennium -- with more than a few bangs. The Naughty Nineties is a fascinating study of how popular culture became, in the phrasing of one of its many nadir moments, a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty -- and went south from there."—Christopher Buckley, political satirist, novelist, and author of Thank You for Smoking and The White House Mess

"David Friend's lively and authoritative study of millennial vulgarity and sleaze is (among other things) an excellent primer for the Age of Trump."—Martin Amis, author of The Moronic Inferno and The War Against Cliché

"A brilliantly researched and uproariously written romp through the sex-fueled Age of Clinton. Nothing is off-limits: Viagra, Brazilian Wax jobs, home-brewed pornography, Fox News, O.J. Simpson, and the birth of reality TV are all expertly grabbed by the scruff-of-the-neck. An instant American Studies classic!"—Douglas Brinkley, presidential historian and author of The Great Deluge

"Written with wit, zest, and subtlety, this is cultural history at its best. I'd lived through the decade, but not until I'd read The Naughty Nineties did I come to appreciate how boldly, and creepily, those years had foreshadowed the messy and bewildering moment we are in now."—Nathaniel Philbrick, National Book Award-winning author of In the Heart of the Sea

"A saucy, outrageous...delicious new book."—Amy Sohn, Elle

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List