Great Books on Gay History

George Chauncey's _Gay New York_. You're welcome.

The great lesbian historian Lillian Faderman has a new big book our--The Gay Revolution (I think). Haven't read it, but it looks good.

Gay history tends to be hit or miss. There are plenty of good books, but all general surveys seem pretty weak.

I like to recommend to male gaylings, "Gay Roots: Twenty Years of Gay Sunshine" edited by Winston Leyland, a 1991 book that is an anthology of gay history,sex, politics, and culture. There are numerous editions, but I like the 1991 for its balance. It has 200 pages of gay history from around the world. Then 100 pages of gay politics, which is contemporary history from the sixties to the eighties. Then gay biography, literary essays, ficition, erotica, and gay poetry from around the world.

Very worthwhile in changing the limited perspectives we get from homophobic press.

George Chauncey's "Gay New York" is good, but you've probably read it.

Have you read B.R. Burg's eccentric "Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition: English Sea Rovers in the Seventeenth Century Caribbean"?

I haven't seen it, but "Love of the Samurai: A Thousand Years of Japanese Homosexuality" is supposed to be powerful stuff, suggesting the decline of masculinity in Japan caused a decline in homosexuality

Jonathan Goldberg, editors, "Queering the Renaissance" is interesting to a fairly advanced student like yourself.

Richard Mohr's "Gay Ideas: Outing and Other Controversies" is perhaps the nucleus around which a gay intellectual history will form.

"The Gay Metropolis 1940-1996" by Charles Kaiser is good but very light.

Let's not forget the dry as dust "Lesbian and Gay Rights in Canada: Social Movements and Equality Seeking 1971-1995" By Miriam Smith. Fills a void.

OP here; yes, read "Gay New York" by George Chauncey and loved it; also consider a must-read for any gay person.

Loving the other suggestions; have always been intrigued by "Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition," never got around to reading it.

Some others I've enjoyed reading over the years:

"The Other Side of Silence -- Men's Lives and Gay Identities: A Twentieth Century History" by John Loughery

"On Queer Street: A Social History of British Homosexuality 1895-1995" by Hugh David

"The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government" by David K. Johnson

And John Boswell's two masterpieces: "Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality" and "Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe"

I would like to echo r6's recommendation of The Other Side of Silence and The Lavender Scare. Both excellent reads.

I also enjoyed Stonewall by David Carter

Daniel Mendelsohn does an astute critique of Boswell's Same Sex Unions, pointing to errors in Boswell's philological scholarship--suggesting that by the time Boswell did the book he was quite ill and panicked for time. Sad.

Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A., A Documentary and Pioneering Collection of Turbulent Chronicles - A Startling New Perspective on the Nation's Past

This unique and pioneering work is a comprehensive collection of documents on American gay life from the early days of European settlement to the emergence of modern American gay culture. Hailed by reviewers, it offers a new historical perspective on this once invisible minority and its 400-year battle. Photographs and illustrations.

Bump.

"Making Gay History" by Eric Marcus has some interesting interviews and is a very quick read.

Boswell didn't go far enough. Mendelsohn is a fraud and a crank who seethes with homophobia, anachronism, and lying about sources.

Like all the "experts" Mendelsohn PRESUMES non-eroticism, which is not a feature of any of the eras involved, because it was normalized for him in school. Well, schools have always been careful to shield children from sex, so he has mistaken the modern imperative of non-erotic scholarship for something emanating from the sources, and that is a philological fraud. It's also an attempt to reduce gays again to their sex organs and discount relationships, as though committed platonic partnerships are not gay when in fact, they are.

Another vote for "Gay New York" by George Chauncey.

And though it is fiction, "Dancer from the Dance" evokes a particular period in gay history with which many of us are familiar. All of Holleran's books are worth reading. Felice Picano is another worthwhile gay novelist.

How dare you make a play for TRANS-ERASURE, OP. All of the books listed in this thread will undoubtedly white wash the significance of historical TRANS WOMEN in history (Joan of Arc, RuPaul, Miss Piggy, and Archduchess Sophie of Austria--- actually all AUSTRALIAN ABORIGYNAL TRANS WOMEN OF COLOR).

Lillian Faderman's new book looks good and she's written some wonderful books over the years.

I used to know Mendelsohn's mother.

He's a saint based on that alone.

The Gay Book of Days came out in the 70s and celebrated gay historical figures both ancient and modern.

The best part was the last two pages with dozens and dozens of initials and hints for one to guess who else was gay:

R.H. American Actor

S.F. American Baseball player

E.L.G. American actress

r18 Thanks for prompting me to look on my bookshelves. Here's a few more for the shorter attention span folks:

The New Gay Book of Lists and The Gay Fireside Companion by Leigh Rutledge

A Treasury of Information for the Gay and Lesbian Community, from Alyson Publications

Queers in History by Keith Stern(forward by Ian McKellen)

Lesbian Lists by Dell Richards

Lavender Lists by Lynne Yamaguchi Fletcher and Adrien Saks

Let's not forget Martin Duberman, "About Time: Exploring the Gay Past" although he doesn't do himself any favors by including one of his own speeches.

"The best part was the last two pages with dozens and dozens of initials and hints for one to guess who else was gay"

Most of them turned out to be pretty accurate, too

Who are these two:

S.F. American Baseball player

E.L.G. American actress

Does anybody have the complete list?

Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin by John D'Emilio

r22 E.L.G is old-timey stage actress Eva Le Gallienne

A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski

Stonewall by David Carter

Gay L.A. by Lillian Faderman and Stuart Timmons

Another Mother Tongue by Judy Grahn

The Gay Metropolis by Charles Kaiser

Rebels, Rubyfruit and Rhinestones by James t. Sears

Pre-Gay L.A. by C. Todd White

The Gay Militants by Donn Teal (a history of post-Stonewall gay militancy; long out of print)

The Zuni Man-Woman by Will Roscoe (about a 19th century "two spirit", transgender Native American)

I think a lot of our would-be historians died in the plague, unfortunately.

R15 Miss Piggy is a trans? How did I miss that?

Raw but deftly edited gay oral histories by Boyd McDonald are literary gems. Our Studs Terkel.

Andrew Holleran's fictional novel "Dancer from the Dance" is a pretty accurate depiction of gay life in New York in the 1970s. Larry Kramer's "Faggots" published the same year is very self loathing and though the details are as accurate the overall feel is not.

Andrew Holleran's fictional novel "Dancer from the Dance" is a pretty accurate depiction of gay life in New York in the 1970s. Larry Kramer's "Faggots" published the same year is very self loathing and though the details are as accurate the overall feel is not.

"Greenwich Village and How It Got That Way" by Terry Miller is an excellent history of GV with an emphasis on its gay history. Miller died of AIDS not long after it was published in the early '90s

This is not the same Terry Miller as Dan Savage's husband..

Men Without Maps - John Ibson The Pleasure Principal - Michael Bronski