It's World AIDS Day, when we reflect on the losses we've suffered, celebrate the advances we've made, and gird ourselves for the fight ahead of us.

While the virus is relatively new in the grand scheme of things, many living today have no connection to the worst years of the epidemic. Intellectually they can conceive of young men dropped dead in the prime of life. But, only 15-20 years on, it's hard to connect emotionally to that reality.

Below, we've gathered books, documentaries, art, and other forms of expression that present an unvarnished look at that dark time, while still celebrating the bravery and resolve of those who stood and fought.

Watch

"How to Survive a Plague" (2012)

Director David France, who covered the AIDS crisis from its beginning, pored through hundreds of hours of news footage, interviews, and demonstrations to recount the story of how activists fought the system and worked to get life-saving drugs to AIDS patients.

France, who dedicated the doc to his late partner, says even then they knew what they were doing was historic—and that many wouldn't live to see the fruits of their labor.

The groundbreaking film has recently been turned into a book that's well worth a read.

"Silverlake Life: The View From Here" (1993)

After his friends Tom and Mark died from AIDS-related illnesses, director Peter Friedman received an extraordinary gift: Dozens of hours of videotape detailing their daily struggle with a disease many still believed was "God's punishment."

It's an intensely personal, heartwrenching and beautiful testament to love and the will to hope in the face of death.

"Angels in America"

Tony Kushner's Pulitzer-winning drama is coming to the London stage next year, but HBO's version (directed by the late Mike Nichols) may be the best screen adaptation of a play ever.

With an all-star cast including Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Mary Louise Parker, Jeffrey Wright, Patrick Wilson and Emma Thompson, the miniseries tears into the heart of our nation, addressing homophobia, racism, death, betrayal and the American dream.

"The Lazarus Effect"

Produced by Spike Jonze, this 2010 documentary offers a more positive outlook for the day—charting how free antiretroviral drugs have saved lives in Zambia, where HIV-positive people undergo a remarkable transformation thanks to treatment that costs about 40 cents a day.

Read

"Body Counts: A Memoir of Politics, Sex, AIDS, and Survival" Sean Strub

Strub, who founded Poz magazine, got his start running the Senate elevator in the U.S. Capitol building and soon discovered a world of closeted gay men in the halls of power.

In the early '80s, as the AIDS crisis hit full-force, he became radicalized and joined in ACT UP demonstrations—even going so far as to put a giant condom over the house of Senator Jesse Helms, who had declared HIV the result of "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct" by gay men.

His memoir is both historical and deeply personal, detailing his own struggle with the virus as well as encounters with everyone from Tennessee Williams to Bill Clinton.

"7 Miles A Second," David Wojnarowicz

It's hard to believe, but in 1996—four years after Wojnarowicz's death from the virus—DC Comics published his surreal graphic novel about hustling, AIDS, politics, and life in the East Village.

written by Wojnarowicz and illustrated by his friends James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook, both artists still living with HIV, 7 Miles A Second perfectly captures a moment in time—a moment in the history of the epidemic, of the New York demimonde and of the art world.

"It is exploitive and hyperbolic," writes Slate's Noah Berlatsky. "The lowbrow trashiness of comics is, as it turns out, a perfect fit for the highbrow trashiness of the ‘80s New York arts scene the comic depicts."

"The Secret Epidemic: The Story of AIDS and Black America," Jacob Levenson

How is it that nearly half of the people with HIV in America are people of color?

Levenson, a professor at the Columbia School of Journalism, digs into our country's racial history and interviews those on the frontline of the epidemic devastating black America.

Listen

"Plague Mass," Diamanda Galas

Galas, who lost her brother to AIDS, has focused much of her avant-garde music and performance art to addressing the epidemic. (She was a member of ACT UP and was arrested for protesting inside Saint Patrick's Cathedral in 1989.)

In 1990, she performed Plague Mass, a maniacal opera of rage and sorrow, at Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York. Topless and covered in blood, she declared AIDS was indeed a punishment on mankind—not against gay men, but against moral hypocrites who turned their backs on those suffering.

She also condemned the media for turning the deaths of people like Freddie Mercury and Rock Hudson into sideshows.

Critics described the work, which was released as a live album in 1991, as "angelic," "harrowing" and even "appalling...in the best possible sense."

"The AIDS Quilt Songbook"

Disappointed with the musical community's response to the epidemic, lyricist William Parker reached out to a group of composers to create art songs inspired by the experiences of those living, coping with, and dying from AIDS.

He told Opera News:

The AIDS Quilt Songbook invites people to take risks. Some texts are very graphic. They are about taking medication, being sick,throwing up,having to take it over again, the night sweats—the horror of the number of diseases that exist. We’re not sugar-coating it and saying, ‘Well, we’re just having a little difficulty.’ We must show some of the rough sides.

After all, most of the songs are about crucial times in our lives-- someone has died, someone has left you, you’ve inherited a lot of money, the boy’s gotten the girl. So, why can’t we sing about AIDS?

Parker died in 1993, but as per his vision, new songs have been added since the songbook's original release.

The AIDS Quilt Songbook is available on Amazon, alonng with The AIDS Quilt Songbook: Sing for Hope, released in 2014.

Look

NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt

Honoring those who have died, the 49,000-panel quilt is the largest piece of folk art in the world—far too large to view in one sitting.

But Microsoft, with help from researchers at Brown and the University of Iowa, has digitized the panels into the AIDS Quilt Touch Interface, which allows you to browse any panel, anywhere.

"Graphic Intervention: 25 Years of International AIDS Awareness Posters"

In 2010, a quarter-century after the first AIDS cases were reported, Boston's MassArt museum hosted a groundbreaking exhibition of more than 150 public health posters and banners from around the world.

The works are illuminating for their historical significance, but also reveal country-specific strategies toward fighting the virus, as well as some of the implicit biases of the times.

Most of the posters, many of which can be viewed online, were borrowed from the collection of James Lapides, who has spent years collecting HIV/AIDS posters from more than 80 countries.