I imagined I knew what the Gay past was like: furtive, dangerous, disparate. So all this to introduce this book: it's a revelation. We imagine there is some kind of linear progress from past simplicity to contemporary complexity. But this book reminded me how much we oversimplify the past. That skeleton view of history is fine for seventh graders. In my defense, I think we all need a basic historical skeleton to hang our experiences on- a timeline with a simplified sense of how things were: rugged 49ers, rigid pilgrims, stuffy Victorians. I recap history with broad brushes and stereotyped characters.

I'm guilty of telling history as a series of discreet events that crash into each other with a kind of inevitability. To get the kids into a new historical text I tell stories. I teach middle school English, and often I'll work with the social studies teacher to tie together strands of history, literature and myth. Finally, Strangers addresses crucial questions of gay culture, including the riddle of its relationship to religion: Why were homosexuals created with feelings that the Creator supposedly condemns? This is a landmark work, full of tolerant wisdom, fresh research, and surprises. He also includes a fascinating investigation of the encrypted homosexuality of such famous nineteenth-century sleuths as Edgar Allan Poe's Auguste Dupin and Sherlock Holmes himself (with glances forward in time to Batman and J. He describes the lives of gay men and women: how they discovered their sexuality and accepted or disguised it how they came out how they made contact with like-minded people. Graham Robb, brilliant biographer of Balzac, Hugo, and Rimbaud, examines how homosexuals were treated by society and finds a tale of surprising tolerance. Long before Stonewall and Gay Pride, there was such a thing as gay culture, and it was recognized throughout Europe and America. 'A brilliant work of social archaeology.A major historical contribution.'―Adam Goodheart, The New York Times Book Review The nineteenth century was a golden age for those people known variously as sodomites, Uranians, monosexuals, and homosexuals.

Balzac by Graham Robb