Editorial Review

James Gardiner's eclectic collection of gay male photos, postcards, play bills, theater posters, and other ephemera is an unguided tour through 100 years of gay male life and culture. Gardiner has wisely followed no specific historical or literary plan--although the photos are arranged in general chronological order--and the effect is striking. As you page through the hundreds of images, you are forced to make your own connections, construct your own sense of reality. Read more

Reviews (3)

A multifacteted overview
To dismiss this book as just an excuse to dredge up some titillating photographs for the purpose of publishing is an injustice.This collection is an historical perspective on many levels - the camera as a art form since its invention, a survey of sociolgical transformations as to the perception of homosexuality,the psychological sweep from the closet to the stage to Stonewall to the AIDS bedside and beyond.There are many many captured moments that seem voyeuristic in the best sense of the word in that the spontaneity of individuals interacting as well as groups entertaining are fresh and often off guard.Here is a portfolio of tenderness, of hilarity, and of tragedy.Would that there were more essays interspersed to document the various periods traversd.But then we must also pay homage to the phrase "a picture is worth a thousand words".Well worth your time.

We were everywhere
A great book of wonderful pictures that proves that men have been loving men for quite some times.Really great eye candy with a historical perspective.

Great possibilities, ultimately disappointing
There are some wonderful archival photos in this book, but it lacks a basic level of "scholarship" that leaves it as one guy's idiosyncratic take on British-dominated gay history.Seems to me there isway too much focus on drag, and a more international perspective would havehelped as well. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Collections, Catalogs, Exhibitions    2. England    3. Gay Studies    4. Gay men    5. General    6. History    7. Homosexuality    8. London    9. Photo Essays    10. Photo Techniques    11. Photograph collections    12. Photography    13. Pictorial works    14. Gardiner, James    15. Gay studies (Gay men)    16. Photographs: portraits    17. Photography / General   

Reviews (1)

A WORK OF ART
I found this book to be beautiful and profound.Regardless if the men pictured were lovers or friends, the photographs made me realize that today we live in a completely different society than the one pictured in this enlightening book.It seemed to be a time (1850-1920)when men were more free to hold hands, hug, even kiss, without the fear of being riduculed, beaten or labeled.It makes me realize that we live in a society just now when we should have moved forward with our emotional freedom and tolerance of others.Instead we seem to be moving backward every day.That is why I feel this book should be looked at, experienced and shared over and over again.It reminded me that in spite of our great leaps in science, medicine and fantastic inventions, and our recent explorations of space, as humankind we seem to have taken a leap into a world that is filled with hate and intolerance, one that has lost the innocence and joy one feels in experiencing these photographs of a special and more unique time and place. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Gay Studies    2. General    3. Photoessays & Documentaries    4. Photography    5. Social Science    6. Sociology    7. Subjects & Themes - Portraits    8. Photography / General   

Features

• Illustrated

Reviews (6)

The Biggest Piece of Junk ever written!!
Islamic Sexualities by Stephen O. Murray is probably the worst piece of Literature ever written.It is all fiction, it does not contain even one bit of truth. It was just written by a bunch of homosexuals who are attempting to justify homosexuality by "claiming" that the Middle East tolerates homosexuaity which is a bunch of trash considering the fact that homosexuality by Islamic Law and Middle Eastern Secular Law is punishable by DEATH! This book is a waste of money not to mention a waste of trees, and has no benefit. It is just a waste of time, even a "fairy tale" or for that mmatter a "tall tale" has more truth than this book.

Is this a joke???
To say that Islam tolerates Homosexuality is a very humorous claim indeed. This author focuses on practices done by corrupt muslims who do not even read their own book. The Quran numerously talks about Homosexuality, Condeming it over and over. First it warns the men not to leave their wives and go for other men. Another verse states How God dealt a destructive Force (severe storms) on the People of "Lot" that instantly killed all their inhabitants as punishment for such a sinful act. Then there are the VAST testimonies of Homosexual muslim who choose not to engage in Homosexual acts and lead a Heterosexual life in order not to Sin in the name of God. I could go on, this is so pathetic that it's not even worth my time reviewing this. MY ADVICE, BEFORE YOU BELIEVE IN SOMETHING SOMEONE SAYS OR WRITES ABOUT, do your own independant research to see if the author is honest or just a fanatic. In this cas go read what the Quran really says about homosexuals.

A Masterpiece, You Will Love This Book
From the cover to the last page, *Islamic Homosexualities* is packed with information that is really useful to the queer Muslim of today. From "Slave Elites" of the Ottoman Empire to the "Gender-Defined" roles of African Homos, from the "Male Actresses" to the "Pakistani Male Prostitues," the book is truly packed with shocking yet factual information. Read more

Subjects:  1. Gay Studies    2. Gay/Lesbian Nonfiction    3. Gays in popular culture    4. Gender Studies    5. History    6. Homosexuality    7. Homosexuality, Male    8. Islamic countries    9. Sexuality    10. Social Science    11. Sociology    12. Sociology of Religion    13. ASIA    14. Africa    15. GAYS    16. HOMOSEXUALITY_RELIGIOUS ASPECTS    17. ISLAM_HISTORY    18. Islamic studies    19. Lesbian studies    20. Social Science / Gay Studies   

Subjects:  1. 1854-1900    2. 19th century    3. Authors, Irish    4. Biography    5. Drama    6. English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh    7. Gay men    8. Great Britain    9. History    10. Homosexuality and literature    11. Literary Criticism    12. Literature - Classics / Criticism    13. Plays    14. Wilde, Oscar,    15. Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900    16. Drama / British & Irish    17. English    18. Influence    19. Literary studies: 19th century    20. Plays & playwrights: 19th century    21. Wilde, Oscar    22. Wilde, Oscar,--1854-1900   

Reviews (25)

Extremely enlightening
I read this book and was moved and challenged.Joe Dallas not only lived this life and thus knows first hand what he is talking about, but has also gained much biblical insight through upto date research.An excellent job and moved me to be on the guard for a definite fight that lays ahead of us believers!EXCELLENT INSIGHTFUL WRITING!!

A Strong Delusion
Well-written for the lay person from a pastor and former gay Christian church member.Gives insight into the minds of those who are deluded regarding their stance on "gay Christianity."
Very Strong Delusion
I began this book with hopes that Mr. Dallas would present something new, but I was disappointed.
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Subjects:  1. Applied Christian Sexual Ethics    2. Biblical teaching    3. Christianity    4. Christianity - History - General    5. Homosexuality    6. Homosexuality in the Bible    7. Religion    8. Religion - Church History    9. Religious aspects    10. Dallas, Joe   

Reviews (2)

Borderlands of nightmare
Charged with some degree of speculation, this work is nonetheless a significant perspective on Nietzsche that any student of the subject ought to consider. Isn't the author's point, despite a near animus toward his subject, rather clear from the data examined? We need not finalize opinion to be grateful for an examination of a man who lived the discovery of the unconscious, without jargon or theories. You can be genuinely confused by Nietzsche, and the strange riddle of his philosophy deserves a bit of demystification. This was a dangerous subject that routinely confuses all discussion of social equality, 'good and evil', to say nothing of the complex history of Zarathustra, from a starting point that misconceived the nature of Greek tragedy. Was Nietzsche Gay?
At first sight, it would seem to the reader that Nietzsche's biographers have finally run out of things to say. We've had the French Nietzsche, the Positivist Nietzsche, The Existential Nietzsche, the Postmodern Nietzsche, ad nauseum. And now the Gay Nietzsche? But hild on here; not so fast. While I may not agree with many of Kohler's arguments, he has still managed to write one hell of an entertaining book without insulting my intelligence in the process.Read more

Subjects:  1. 1844-1900    2. 19th century    3. Biography    4. Biography / Autobiography    5. Germany    6. History    7. Homosexuality, Male    8. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm,    9. Philosophers    10. Philosophy    11. Reference    12. Biography & Autobiography / Philosophers   

Reviews (2)

excellent considering the little information available
once upon a time, two countries, england and france, became soooo powerful that they decided to create empires stretching from one end of the globe to the other, and who better to do some of the grunt work than gay men, who were unable to live their lives freely in mother countries which shunned and repressed them, who were much more interested than their heterosexual counterparts in learning about new languages, religions and cultures and who had a whole new world of sexual opportunity opened up to them by mingling with peoples who didn't suffer from the sexual constraints that moralistic european society had been confining them with since christianity took hold?... Argh!Someone stole my idea for a dissertation!
It's about time someone wrote this book.In this historical text, an Australian scholar details how colonial travels affected what we would now call gay men and how gay men affected colonialism.In the first half of the book, Robert Aldrich how this phenomenon occurred for painters, poets, businessmen, and political activists, and men in other professions.In the latter half of the book, he discusses this phenomenon region by region (Papua New Guinea, North Africa, South Asia, etc).Included in this book is a whole chapter dedicated to the ultimate gay European colonizer, E. M. Forster.Read more

Subjects:  1. Colonies    2. Europe    3. Gay Studies    4. Gay men    5. Gay/Lesbian Nonfiction    6. Gender Studies    7. General    8. History    9. Homosexuality    10. Interpersonal relations    11. Lesbian Studies    12. Sexual behavior    13. 20th century    14. Colonization & independence    15. Empires & historical states    16. Gay studies (Gay men)    17. History / General    18. Social history    19. c 1800 to c 1900   

Reviews (1)

AFascinating Look at the Gay and Lesbian movement
This is one of those books that tells you more about yourself than you ever thought it could.This volume documents the history of the Gay and Lesbian movement from 1945-1990 in great detail.From the initial graspingat identity after WWII through the Mattachine Society and Stonewall, thisbook tells the story of our struggle for freedom.From the bashingsthroughout the decades to the loving way our community cared for those withAIDS, this book tells the story of our spirit.Making History invites youto meet the people who made us who we are today.An example?Thepsychologist - Dr. Evelyn Hooker - challenged by her gay friend and studentSammy to prove gay people were not ill.At first hesitant, she picked upthe gauntlet, but hadn't finished her groundbreaking research before Sammydied in a car accident in 1945.These are just two of the many people inthis book.You owe it to yourself to meet the others. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Gay Studies    2. Gay liberation movement    3. Gay rights    4. General    5. History    6. History - General History    7. Sociology    8. Sociology - General    9. United States    10. Gay & Lesbian studies    11. Human rights    12. Pollution & threats to the environment    13. USA    14. c 1945 to c 1960    15. c 1960 to c 1970    16. c 1970 to c 1980    17. c 1980 to c 1990   

Reviews (1)

Excellent appraisal of the Southern paradox
The 1950's South was both a time and a place of contradictions. On the one hand, there was a cultural revolution going on that fused both white and black musical tastes into one revolutionary music genre (rock 'n' roll) anda political revolution that went on (integration) which made the culturalachievements seem to pale in comparison. In essence, the South of the1950's was a confusing maelstrom of contradictory policies and failedopportunities for peaceful change.Read more

Subjects:  1. 1945-    2. 1951-    3. History    4. History - U.S.    5. History: American    6. Nineteen fifties    7. Social conditions    8. Southern States    9. United States - 20th Century    10. United States - 20th Century/50s    11. United States - State & Local - General    12. American history: postwar, from c 1945 -    13. Black studies    14. Civil rights & citizenship    15. History / United States / 20th Century    16. Multicultural studies    17. U.S. Department of Agriculture policy; agribusiness; legal issues; chemicals; stock car racing; NASCAR; blues; gospel; rock 'n' roll; soul music; style; gay life; lesbian life; social life; civil rights; white segregationists; NAACP; Citizens Councils; local leaders; Little Rock; 1957; Central High School; SNCC    18. USA   

Subjects:  1. Gay Studies    2. Gender Studies    3. History    4. Homosexuality    5. Homosexuality, Male    6. Male friendship    7. Social Science    8. Sociology    9. United States    10. United States - General    11. United States History (Specific Aspects)    12. Gay studies (Gay men)    13. Social history    14. USA    15. c 1700 to c 1800    16. c 1800 to c 1900   

Reviews (1)

A great history of gay & lesbian Latin(o/a) American art!
Sorry for the essentialism, but originally I was skeptical about what a European academic would say about gay Latin American art.However, the author resisted Eurocentrism here and others have described his previous work as very anti-racist.In this book, Bleys looks at Latin American art from 1810 to the present, with a chapter on art from gay Latinos in the US.Bleys examines Mexico, Brazil, Cuba, and Puerto Rico under his idea of Latin American.This may frustrate some.(I hear that Argentina has a rich history of both gay expression and repression.It doesn't come up here.)Still, given the geographic, linguistic, political, racial, and historical diversity among these four countries, I think Bleys made a great effort.Too, the discussion on lesbian art may feel scant to some, but I think Bleys tried his best.This book included a huge range of photos that aided the text.Social constructionists will love this book because Bleys emphasizes artists that reject Western ideas about gay identity and artists that problematize the gay/straight binary overall.Under this constructionism, Bleys uses the term "homotextuality" which he never defines well.This book has a terrible intro.Also, Bleys' timeline is shakey.(For example, the chapter on art from 1810 to 1910 discusses much art after 1910.The chapter about 1975 ot the present focuses heavily on works from the past five years.)This book is much more typical of an art text than it is gay studies or Latino studies.Nevertheless, it will make you think deeply about what is homoerotic art, who can be a homoerotic artist, and how race intersects with those questions.This was a veritabe encyclopedia of gay and lesbian Latin American art.I am beyond impressed with this work. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 19th century    2. 20th century    3. Art    4. Art & Art Instruction    5. Art, Latin American    6. Caribbean & Latin American    7. Criticism    8. Gay Studies    9. History - Modern (Late 19th Century to 1945)    10. Homosexuality in art    11. Latin America - General    12. Lesbianism in art   

Reviews (20)

Preface should include a Warning about the Overuse of Footnotes!
10 years ago, I orginally bought this book right before a transatlantic flight having no idea that instead of a being a good read to pass the time that this bloated collection of footnotes would induce coma.
Of Boswell, Timidity and Denial anent History,
Messrs.: Some reviewers' titles, when combined with their texts, are remarkably suggestive of Freudian slips with regard to what is seemingly in their respective minds, and reveal where their thoughts and inhibitions lie.Part of this is exposed by an attendant desire to promote whatever they define as a sort of self-supposed or imagined world standard for an amorphous mythical "tradition," which is to be supposedly found by all a higher authority to the numerous and irrefutable historical facts presented by Boswell.First of all, to-day's concept of Romantic Love was simply unrefined before three hundred or so years ago, and the evolving nature of various associated rituals come down to us from that point.Second, before that evolution (or devolution, depending on your perspective), the so-called traditions of friendship, brotherhood (and all related terms and practices), abduction, and marriage as then and also formally practiced, I would emphasize, together with the near universal association of the masculine or masculinity with male same-sex personages (most often heroes, gods and demi-gods), practices, acts and interests, were all firmly homosexual.Practitioners were unabashedly presentated worldwide as homosexual to a predominant audience for many tens of centuries.Third, homosexual relationships and not heterosexual ones were considered the more natural, ascendant, as well as the norm, and certainly the position actively and overtly promoted by the early and later Church.Most churchmen (and members of their flock), of yester-day and to-day, were exceedingly avid practitioners of homosexual desire, love and friendships.Read for yourself what they reduced to writing, in whatever language you read, for proofs.Why then the anguished surprise, unfounded denials and the sense of disgust, for lack of other expressions, publicly expressed concerning the long, historical, widely known, and accepted practice of marriage between same-sex partners, either as performed and thus sanctified by the Church or via the equally acceptable alternative vehicle, which also bestowed the appellation of marriage on the same-sex relationship, of simply living together as a couple and being recognized as married by your neighbors?This is what Boswell has written in both of his monumental works, as I comprehend him.Some have missed these essentials altogether.This reality, as conveyed and constructed of fact after fact by Boswell, is the complete obverse, quite obviously, of what many uninformed or head-in-the-sand people believe, or are determined to believe, as traditional because of what they have been taught erroneously or might prefer to think for various reasons.But Boswell's revelations and relentless enumeration of historical facts and their elucidation is nonetheless well researched and undeniably true, and his work stands appropriately at the polar opposite to the watered-down and factually ignorant fabrications written by others, which non-facts and mis-apprehensions are further carelessly bandied about by the majority of heterosexualists (or non-Uranians), whether due to willful ignorance, nervous denial, or homophobic hysteria.To compound this egregious situation, during the mid-Nineteenth Century, as Boswell also informs the reader, we began to define individuals in terms of which of two genders they loved, which is itself an absurd shrinking of the spectrum of human practice, something not previously thought remotely to be necessary, or yet considered and conceptualized before then.Homosexualists were first categorized as Uranians until the term homosexual became the standard adjective (it is not properly used as a noun), although the word Gay had been used previously for centuries, for those having similar natural interests.Do not confuse the heterosexual family unit of to-day with the preferred arrangement from antiquity to present because indeed it was not the relational preference until quite recently along the timeline.As well, heterosexual marriage, when and if selected, was almost always performed for dynastic reasons (usually under terms of a contract), but not for love as is asserted to be the cause to-day.There was also a real need to address familial concerns related to procreation and rights of inheritance, which actively drove the contractual parties (the parents or guardians) to ensure that the husband would be the most likely father of any resultant progeny.These particulars are clearly demonstrated by what Boswell (and other historians and intellectuals of current and past note) presents again and again in his book(s).To the ancients and those living up to the Modern Era's fringe, the female was a drone and a minor property item, and mostly recognized as an object of procreative necessity-this is a fact, not a statement of belief or errant misogyny--although not the object of true friendship or love (i.e., intelligent love or bond), and certainly not an equal partner in marriage as our common but incorrect heterosexual currency would now define it.If you should care to read the ancient wits, various Greek and Roman philosophers and like playwrights, up to the beginnings of the Romantic Era, their most acidic and vituperative comments and biting satires would focus upon the cuckold who actually professed to love his mate (notice I do not here use the terms spouse or wife because, once more, as shown by Boswell, there were no official ceremonies, whether secular or religious, then extant, until the Late Middle Ages, which is why most relationships of whatever type were what we to-day define as common law).Since females were universally thought not to possess the intellectual equipment, loyalty or logic requisite for true love or even friendship (the term "friends," when used to described a relationship amongst males, was then more freighted with serious meaning than to-day), and possessed of no capability to form a lasting relationship, they were employed in drudgery, for ready sexual satisfaction, child-bearing and rearing, and housekeeping duties.In the centuries before condoms and the pill, as Boswell relates, young men were more frequently employed for the sexual release of older males (unwanted children were very frequently abandoned or sold), especially when all members of a household were under the sway of the pater familias or dominant male, and where all members were dominated and considered equal prey.In addition, Boswell writes, homosexual love was considered greatly preferable to heterosexual love in all respects, as well as being far more natural, tasteful and enduring.Indeed, most ancient males held the opinion that heterosexual sex was highly disgusting and distasteful, and could cause one to become effeminate, if performed too regularly.At present, due largely to the misanthropy of the so-called feminist revolution and its resultant devolution, already infected and informed by the limpid ideals of Romantic Love that preceded it, true historical tradition with regard to one's affective interests, love and relationships has been literally turned upside down.Neither the ancients, members of the so-called Church, both early and late, nor the Renaissance Man or the scholars of the Enlightenment would recognize or yet understand this massive turn of events in affective interest.Given only one of the many well-documented examples provided by Boswell, it could be easily established that, following the historical precursors of same-sex abduction and adoption, marriage was first practiced amongst those with same-sex affective interests.These facts are directly converse to the inaccurate and deceiving portrayal concocted by to-day's (and yester-day's) ignorant rabble that marriage is of heterosexual origin and that heterosexual relationships have been the exclusive preference of all mankind since time out of mind, regardless of such assertions being proven non-historical and without basis in fact or reality.As with one reviewer here, who wrote when addressing Same-Sex Unions..., "the parallels to marriage are utterly unquestionable," but then backs away and asserts that he "doubt(s) that he (Boswell) establishes that same-sex marriage existed," there is a consistently disappointing and confused attempt to somehow create a distinction without a real difference.That is timidity, intellectual atrophy and denial taken to extremes, which is, sadly, just one example of what can be described as intellectual suicide and the stubborn avoidance of reality whenever and wherever this particular subject matter is broached.I think the singularly tremendous and beneficial scholarship of Boswell and what will be his distinguished legacy require all honest readers, together with his book reviewers, to consider the known (even if uncomfortable) and unavoidable facts, and to not bring their biases, sense of denial, misunderstandings (purposeful or otherwise) and timorousness to bear on this great work of history, or to this subject matter as a whole.

A Work of Surpassing Scholarship
Potential Reader: If you are interested in historical realities, fact and not bias, truth, and same-sex studies, then you need to read everything that John Boswell has written in this regard.Here, Boswell peels layer after layer of obscuring biases, prejudices, and untoward mis-apprehension from this long buried subject matter, thereby allowing us to view it clearly without the purposefully applied and clouding gloss from centuries of overt, outright lies about the character, naturalness, myths and legends, and the true history and works of an entire group of always existing human beings, who differ from their fellows only in terms of affective interest.Boswell's book does not promulgate an "agenda," whether perceived curiously as hidden or open, as asserted by and irrespective of the dishonest pretenses of its somehow blissful detractors.Rather, this is a very prescient, professionally competent and scholarly presentation of historical fact.It is tremendously unfortunate that some have chosen the disappointing path of continued denial and purposeful, wanton ignorance, yet even long after its publication.And like all and any other works of the professional historian, portions of such are open to learned, dispassionate debate, but should not be the subject of stubbornly ignorant and myopic diatribes of the most wrong-headed and biased sort, especially when coupled with no factual bases to somehow buttress their failed argument on behalf of the contrary opinion.Some of the reviewers here must be addressing instead some work other than that of Boswell, since what they assert has nothing whatever to do with either the extraordinary breadth and depth of this present work nor with its several and brilliantly interwoven theses.For example, one reviewer's reiteration of a Greek term uncomfortably provides the sense of homophobic panic, and this then is compounded by a wondrously absurd attempt to use a preposterous and nonexistent conflict in interpretation to deconstruct Boswell's entire work, on the simpleminded basis of that reviewer's peculiar use and his uniquely perceived meaning of one word in Greek.The Greek word as suggested does not, obviously was not intended to, and simply could not conceivably bear the entire weight, thematically or otherwise, of Boswell's much broader conception for his quite extensive work, which is the subject of my review.Boswell was wholly conversant, as this book more than clearly demonstrates, in several ancient and modern languages and was also a greatly respected and internationally recognized scholar of renown (a full professor at Yale University) in his own right.I would conjecture that this book's naysayers' supposed credentials or degrees were mail-ordered from some evangelical bible college.As for the unschooled, silly, but too conveniently oft-parroted misconception that asserts as some kind of unassailable fact the totally fanciful, nonhistorical idea of "male friends as only just friends" in ancient through pre-modern times, if one had bothered to read the book past the first fifty pages or so, it would have been learned and such provided with a number of verifiable examples that would inform even the most closed of minds that the concept of male "friends" and "friendship" had a much more significant, certainly romantic, and very serious meaning to males who lived during those historical periods.For some, these attitudes are operative, valid and present to-day.Reviewers also missed large sections of this work that addressed same-sex union ceremonies and, more importantly, those paragraphs abundantly devoted to the clear contemporary meaning of these unions to the actual participants and to their contemporaries.I myself am a Near and Middle Eastern History scholar, and I can attest to Professor Boswell's professional accuracy and correctness with regard to his translations, as well as to his use of the sources and materials he had to hand, and also to the substantiveness of the undoubted in-depth peer reviews that preceded and substantiated each and every part of this book.Boswell's scholarly appreciation for and his very selection and use of the many resources and source materials cited and compiled here, some quite arcane and largely unknown or even those illicitly altered and redacted centuries ago, are a virtual treasure trove of hidden, ignored and bypassed knowledge, even if some of it is general, that we are at long last made aware, having been brought from forgotten depths in to the light to inform.All is presented and conveyed in a style that is as interesting and informative to read as a good novel, or perhaps, for example, the excellent social histories by Barbara Tuchman.Yet 'Same-Sex Union...' is both a serious book for the historian (and even more so for the public at large, if they only will take the opportunity to learn) and moreover an exceedingly necessary work that I, for one, am very pleased was written, especially so by a person with the outstanding credentials Boswell possessed.I am very proud to have this book resident in my bookshelf, it having been read and referenced many times since being acquired.The information concerning Nero and Hadrian and their respective lovers and husbands (Sporus and Antinous), as well as the many so-called paired saints (Serge and Bacchus, etc.), together with the internal mini-histories and fascinating cultural aspects of abduction, adoption and marriage (greatly differing from the practices and rationales employed in our presumably modern society) in the ancient and premodern worlds was, for me, the most intriguing, informative and fascinating.His extra-textual cites, definitions, explications, notes, and appendices are utterly superb, and could not be bettered or more revealing.Surely, it was (and is again) time that someone with the requisite credentials, background, intellect and scholarship, moxie, rectitude, and writing skills, like Boswell, wrote this sort of history (I would definitely say the same for his previous much needed and heralded work: 'Christianity, Social...').This book is a very densely-packed, highly intellectual and appropriately technical work, so if you like your histories 'light,' I would strongly recommend a sort of 'warm-up' first with other works of like but less intensive nature before tackling it without some preparatory information and knowledge.In my opinion, you, the fortunate reader of this book, will actually derive more from Boswell's work should you be prepared to comprehendingly read and thoroughly understand it--rather than try to get by with only the application of, at best, a pedestrian, provincial background and with a near dearth of requisite knowledge, such as that so embarrassingly exposed and natteringly evinced by some few intellectually challenged and clearly prejudiced exemplars displayed and revealed in a number of preceding reviews.I only wish that I could give this monumentally excellent work by Boswell more than 5-stars! ... 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Subjects:  1. Christianity - History - General    2. Europe    3. Europe - General    4. Gay Studies    5. Gay marriage    6. History    7. History - General History    8. History: World    9. Homosexuality    10. Lesbianism    11. European history (ie other than Britain & Ireland)    12. Family & relationships    13. Gay & Lesbian studies    14. Social Science / Gay Studies   

Subjects:  1. 19th century    2. 20th century    3. England    4. Gay Studies    5. Gender Studies    6. History    7. Homosexuality, Male    8. London    9. London (England)    10. Social Science    11. Social conditions    12. Sociology    13. Gay studies (Gay men)    14. Literary theory    15. London, Greater London    16. Social Science / Gender Studies    17. c 1800 to c 1900    18. c 1900 - c 1914   

Reviews (1)

a fascinating read
Anyone interested in the nature/nurture origins and research on homosexuality should read this. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Evolutionary psychology    2. Genetic aspects    3. History    4. Homosexuality    5. Homosexuality, Male    6. Psychology   

Editorial Review

Authors Jason Berry (Read more

Reviews (54)

First remove the beam from your own eye
As can be seen in some of the previous "reviews" of this book, the considered reaction of some to Mr. Berry's findings is:'Kill the messenger!'This being the case, the following communiqué issued by the Vatican Press Office on May 19, 2006 is certainly germane to this book, and to the deprecatory comments about it posted here.This is excerpted from an English translation of the Italian original:
The Price of Priestly Pederasty & The author's use of this unspeakable crime by men of the cloth to tarnish the Catholic Church.
by FATHER OWEN KEARNS, LC
CAREFUL: Buy this fast!!!
Better buy this book fast if you think it is worth it because it WILL NOT BE AROUND FOR VERY LONG!
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Subjects:  1. Catholic Church    2. Christianity - Catholicism    3. Christianity - History - Catholic    4. Clergy    5. Homosexuality    6. Religion    7. Religion - Classic Works    8. Religious aspects    9. Roman Catholic Church    10. Sexual abuse of children by clergy    11. Sexual behavior    12. Sociology Of Religion    13. Religion / General   

Reviews (1)

Gender Bending Images of Beauty: a Mind-boggling Read
Living in Iran for five years, I became fascinated by one particular image of Iranian women. Not the woman in the black, cover-all chador, but the round-faced curly-haired sun lady, or Khorshid Khanoum, seen on everything from key-rings to hand-painted crockery. I wrote to Afsaneh Najmabadi, asking if she knew the origin of the image, and found to my delight that it would be the subject of a chapter in her new book, "Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards." It's a fascinating and revealing detective story of how images of beauty have changed over the centuries.
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Subjects:  1. 19th century    2. 20th century    3. Feminism & Feminist Theory    4. Gender Studies    5. Gender identity    6. History    7. History: World    8. Iran    9. Middle East - General    10. Social conditions    11. Sociology    12. Women    13. Gay & Lesbian studies    14. History / Middle East