In 1971 nearly 1300 prisoners in upstate New York took over the Attica Correctional Facility demanding better conditions and more humane treatment. Five days later Governor Nelson Rockefeller ordered the forcible retaking of the prison. The result was disastrous. For the last 40 years the State of New York has fought hard to close the book on what happened at Attica by sealing records, by refusing to charge troopers or COs with the crimes they committed during their brutal retaking of the prison, and by focusing the media’s attention on prisoner misdeeds. Meanwhile, the prisoners and some of the COs who also suffered the state’s assault on the prison, fought just as hard to get their story told. Heather Ann Thompson has also spent the last decade trying to tell this story. She has just completed the first comprehensive history of Attica and its legacy for Pantheon Books (out in September, 2016) and, in this talk, she will share this history as well as the various challenges of writing it.