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Hidden from History
Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past
600 pages
A sweeping, revelatory excavation of the lives, loves, and struggles that history tried to bury.
What it feels like
Reading this anthology feels like walking through a vast, newly unearthed museum dedicated to a stolen lineage. The pace is steady and deliberate, asking you to sit with the weight of rigorous, scholarly excavation. It is an illuminating and deeply reflective experience, balancing the somber realities of systemic erasure and historical violence with the triumphant resilience of queer communities across millennia. The prose shifts slightly with each essay, yet remains consistently accessible, earnest, and deeply empathetic. It moves the reader from a sense of historical isolation into a profound, grounding connection with the past. This is a vital, empowering read for anyone who wants to look back through the centuries and finally see themselves looking back.
- Mood
- illuminating
- reflective
- somber
- resilient
- Tone
- scholarly
- earnest
- revelatory
- empathetic
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- historical reclamation · systemic erasure · community resilience · fluidity of identity · queer lineage
- The writing
- Rigorous and academic yet deeply accessible, weaving diverse scholarly voices into a cohesive, illuminating narrative.
- The arc
- Moves from the sobering reality of historical erasure to a profound, grounding sense of connection with a vast and resilient lineage.
- Who it's for
- History enthusiasts and queer readers seeking to ground themselves in the deep, complex roots of their cultural lineage.
Content notes
- homophobia
- systemic oppression
- historical violence
- references to the Holocaust
About the book
This richly revealing anthology brings together for the first time the vital new scholarly studies now lifting the veil from the gay and lesbian past. Such notable researchers as John Boswell, Shari Benstock, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, Jeffrey Weeks and John D’Emilio illuminate gay and lesbian life as it evolved in places as diverse as the Athens of Plato, Renaissance Italy, Victorian London, jazz Age Harlem, Revolutionary Russia, Nazi Germany, Castro’s Cuba, post-World War II San Francisco—and peoples as varied as South African black miners, American Indians, Chinese courtiers, Japanese samurai, English schoolboys and girls, and urban working women.
Gender and sexuality, repression and resistance, deviance and acceptance, identity and community—all are given a context in this fascinating work.
Description from Open Library.
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