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These are people you will be proud of. More than anything, this book shows the existence of a shared Gay and Lesbian culture across the centuries (despite the claims of today's ignorant cynics). If these shadowy figures from the past could time-travel to our own era, they would be shocked at our freedom -- then they'd shout for joy and fit right in.Don't be the least concerned about the book's length or turn away because it's about "history." The vignettes Katz assembled are usually brief, often only a page or two, which makes the book easy to put down when you need a breather, and easy to pick up again, without having to go back and refresh your memory; you'll always know what he's talking about. What's striking about the hundreds of stories documented here is how much we're like these people of centuries ago, and how much they're like us today. Their stories' cumulative effect gives this volume its power, and makes it, in my view, the most important Gay book of the 20th century. These are people we recognize. Often they faced oppression too horrible for us to imagine (imprisoned, put to death, kidnapped, hospitalized, drugged, lobotomized, castrated, and those were just for starters), but they responded much as we might have in their shoes: usually with courage, but sometimes with cowardice; usually with great faithfulness to their loved ones, but sometimes willing to betray them; often defiantly, but sometimes meekly; they generally lived with a great deal of personal integrity, though some turned to crime and others went crazy. And in them we see ourselves.
Katz has his biases, and he does go overboard to provide "gender balance", but all in all his book is very educational and extremely entertaining. Katz paved the way for John Boswell, John D'Emilio, Allan Berube, George Chauncey and many, many other historians. You can't go wrong with this one. I read "Gay American History" when I was coming out and it was a revelation. Though some of the concepts are outdated, and the facts have been superseded by later research, it remains the basic text book for gay (and lesbian) American history.
I bought the first edition of this book, and it sits dogged earred and loved on my bookshelf. We meet workers and vagabonds, gentlemen and gentleladies, ruffians and scoundrels, all presented in their own words through the impeccable research, editing and writing of Jonathan Katz. You will weep with humor, anger and shame at these pentrating pictures of lives that were hidden away by prejudice and too often still are. Jonathan Katz would be sainted if he never wrote another word or produced another bit of research. This fine documentary history traces the tragedy and triumph, joy and pain of the lives of gay people in these United States from native people and pilgrims to the mental hospitals of the 20th century.
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