Full Description
This book gives a voice to more than eighty people from every major continent and from all walks of life. It includes poets and philosophers, rulers and spies, activists and artists. Alongside such celebrated figures as Michelangelo, Frederick the Great and Harvey Milk are lesser-known but no less surprising individuals: Dong Xian and the Chinese emperor Ai, whose passion flourished in the 1st century BC; the unfortunate Robert de Peronne, first to be burned at the stake for sodomy; Katharine Philips, writing proto-lesbian poetry in 17th-century England; and `Aimee' and `Jaguar', whose love defied the death camps of wartime Germany. With many striking illustrations - including paintings, drawings, photographs and archival documents - Gay Life Stories will entertain, give pause for thought, and ultimately celebrate the diversity of human history.
Contents
Ancient Ancestors * Saints and Sinners * Renaissance Men and Women * Love and Sex in the Enlightenment * Founding Fathers and Mothers * The Fin-de-Siecle and Belle Epoque * Modern Women * Entanglements of Sex and Politics * Visions of Male Beauty * Love in the Levant * Japonisme * Activists * International Lives
