Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History: From Antiquity to the Mid-Twentieth Century
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Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History: From Antiquity to the Mid-Twentieth Century
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From Library Journal
Aldrich and Wotherspoon (history, Univ. of Sydney) are brave editors, as a "who's who" for gay studies might be seen as concretizing in an area in which the constructionist/essentialist debate is still a minefield. Nevertheless, they provide an articulate rationale for this book in their introduction. In addition to justifying the "who's who" approach in general at a time when social history moves the focus to "unknown" people, they seek to include anyone of significance in the history of sexual minorities without any limits based on what the subjects did in bed. Well over 100 contributors have written the 500 entries, which range from Sappho to Andr? Gide; most entries are accompanied by a bibliography. This is a scholarly alternative to more celebratory or localized works such as Paul Elliott Russell's The Gay 100 (Citadel, 1996). Along with the companion volume, Who's Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History, also edited by Aldrich and Wotherspoon, it belongs in every library concerned with world history. David Azzolina, Univ. of Pennsylvania Libs., Philadelphia Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
edition.
Review
'A good job of an impossible task, looking beyond the borders of North America, Australia and northern Europe to include people who have made important contributions from outside the gay and lesbian mainstream.' - Diva'As entertaining as it is informative sets a standard in gay dictionaries and encyclopedias that others should note and follow. Highly recommended.' - Gay Times
Eero Richmond | 
06/08/2009
06/08/2009
A "Who's Who" about who was
)
Get out your magnifying glass, folks! The print in this book is VERY tiny. But packed in its 500+ pages is a wealth of information about who was gay, may have been gay, is assumed to have been gay, etc. etc. The latter categories, while interesting to have been included, certainly raise a few questions for the reader (John Singer Sargent? Henry James? St. Paul? Jesus? - these are obviously only surmises). It's true, of course. that in earlier centuries those who knew "the love that dare not speak its name" often did not openly speak about it!
Thumbing through this book, one immediately thinks of scores of homosexual men and women throughout history who are not included here. As the Introduction states, however, " ... there are an infinite number of entries that one might include, but only a finite number of pages." The focus here is primarily on the Western World, with British, Italian, French, American, and German gay (or thought to be gay) men and women predominating. The editors, Robert Aldrich and Garry Wotherspoon, both at the University of Sydney, Australia, have solicited entries from scholars throughout the world. Each biographical entry includes a brief, but very useful, bibliography. An interesting, sometimes frustrating, but ultimately very enjoyable "Who's Who" about who was. Recommended.
SEBASTIANVS |
06/01/2001
06/01/2001
very interesting book
I was deeply disappointed when I received and opened this book, since I had expected a more comprehensive encyclopedia of the topic. However, the book contains only famous European people with the exception of very few entries like Jesus, Hafez, David and Jonathan. I couldn't find so many renowned Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Arabian, Persian, Turkish "Gay & Lesbian" people !
In addition, it lacks lots of celebrated Occidental persons, like the Roman emperor Galba, Juan 2nd of Castilla, Rudolph 2nd of Holy Roman empire or so , et descriptions of some items are not very detailed ----- e.g. in "Jesus" of Nazareth, there are no mention of his "the beloved" disciple, Ioannes euangelistes, Lazaros, or Ioannes Markos, ..... , but also the author does not refer to "Secret Gospel of Mark" at all, as if Jesus(Iesous) Christos was heterosexual.
Hence, I think the editors should name the book "Who's Who in Famous Western Gay & Lesbian History".
Nevertheless it is a very interesting and readable book not only for gay & lesbian people, but for bisexual/ heterosexual inclined men and women.
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