Hidden from History
Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past

Duberman, M.B.; Vicinus, M.; George, C. Jr. (eds)
Publisher:  Penguin Books, Markham, Canada
Year Published:  1989  
Pages:  579pp   Price:  $29.95   ISBN:  0-453-00689-2
Library of Congress Number:  HQ76.25.H527   Dewey:  306'76'6'09 dc20
Resource Type:  Book
Cx Number:  CX4130

Eessays analyzing the political, philosophical, and social history of homosexuality from the ancient world to the postwar era.


Abstract:  Hidden from History is a collection of essays analyzing the political, philosophical, and social history of homosexuality from the Ancient World to the Postwar Era. Thirty pieces cover different periods and societies from a variety of perspectives (e.g. "Lesbian Sexuality in Medieval and Early Modern Europe," "The Lesbian and Gay Subculture of Jazz Age Harlem"). The editors have included subjects frequently overlooked in the field, such as homosexuality in third-world societies, the patterns of homosexual behaviour in everyday life, and (in the biographical essays) the influence of the subject's homosexuality on work and career.

A collection of "some of the most exciting recent work" in the study of gay and lesbian history, the book summarizes the research done in the last decade and points to questions which must still be addressed. The editors sum up the book's raison d'etre in the introduction: "personal sexual behaviour is never simply a private matter, but is always shaped by and shapes the wider social and political milieux."



Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I: The Ancient World
1. Revolutions, Universals, and Sexual Categories
2. Sex before Sexuality: Pederasty, Politics, and Power in Classical Athens
3. Sexual Matters: Rethinking Sexuality in History

Part II: Preindustrial Societies
1. Lesbian Sexuality in Medieval and Early Modern Europe
2. Homosexuality and the State in Late Imperial China
3. Homosexuality in the Renaissance: Behaviour, Identity, and Artistic Expression
4. Lesbians in American Indian Cultures
5. Male Love in Early Modern Japan: A Literary Depiction of the "Youth"
6. The Birth of the Queen: Sodomy and the Emergence of Gender Equality in Modern Culture, 1660-1750
7. Sodomy in the Dutch Republic During the Eighteenth Century

Part III: The Nineteenth Century
1. "Writhing Bedfellows" in Antebellum South Carolina: Historical Interpretation and the Politics of Evidence
2. Knights-errant and Gothic Seducers: The Representation of Male Friendship in Mid-Nineteenth Century America
3. "She Even Chewed Tobacco": A Pictorial Narrative of Passing Women in America
4. Inverts, Perverts, and Mary-Annes: Male Prostitution and the Regulation of Homosexuality in England
5. Distance and Desire: English Boarding School Friendships, 1870-1920

Part IV: Early Twentieth Century
1. Iconography of a Scandal: Political Cartoons and the Eulenburg Affair in Wilhelmin Germany
2. Discourses of Sexuality and Subjectivity: The New Woman, 1870-1936
3. The Mythic Mannish Lesbian: Radclyffe Hall and the New Woman
4. Christian Brotherhood or Sexual Perversion?
5. A Spectacle in Colour: The Lesbian and Gay Subculture of Jazz Age Harlem
6. Paris Lesbianism and the Politics of Reaction, 1900-1940
7. Russia's Gay Literature and Culture: The Impact of the October Revolution
8. Swastika, Pink Triangle, and Yellow Star: The Destruction of Sexology

Part V: World War II and the Postwar Era
1. Marching to Different Drummer: Lesbian and Gay GIs in World War II
2. "Imagine My Surprise": Women's Relationships in Mid-Twentieth Century America
3. Migrancy and Male Sexuality on the South African God Mines
4. Oral History and the Study of Sexuality in the Lesbian Community: Buffalo, NY, 1940-1960
5. Gay Politics and Community in San Francisco Since World War II

Notes
Notes on Contributors

Subject Headings