Homosexuality and Civilization |
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You Are Here: Home > History Books > Holland History > Item 211
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Homosexuality and Civilization
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by Louis Crompton
Sales Rank: 138667
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List Price: $21.00
$14.28
At Amazon
on 10-13-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 648 pages
Published by: Belknap Press October 31, 2006
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0674022335
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0674022331
Book Dimensions:
9.3 x 6.5 x 1.5 inches
Weighs: 1.8 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
In this notable monograph, impressive for its breadth and readability, an early pioneer of gay and lesbian studies attempts the Herculean task of chronicling the history of homosexuality in Europe and parts of Asia from Homer to the 18th century. In a series of short vignettes, Crompton, emeritus professor of English at the University of Nebraska, relates the "rich and terrible" stories of men and women who have been immortalized, celebrated, shunned or executed for the special attention they paid to members of their own sex. Two chapters on China and Japan are a welcome addition to the usual Eurocentric focus. Crompton's comparative study reveals just how anomalous Judeo-Christian aversion to homosexuality seems in the context of world history. On the battlefield with Alexander the Great, in the highest ranks of the Han dynasty in China, in the "bisexual" poetry of Arab Spain and among the samurai in Japan, same-sex male love flourished (lesbianism, Crompton admits, is harder to find). Even among Christian rulers of European countries, homosexual attachments weren't unheard of. Crompton surmises that in 1610, "one `sodomite,' James I, ruled England, Scotland, and Ireland; another, Rudolph II, presided over the Holy Roman Empire; and France had its second homosexual king within a generation." Crompton's vivid and sobering accounts of the persecution of homosexuals under Christian regimes throughout the centuries emerge as the book's undeniable focus. Throughout, Crompton's great intellectual nemesis is the late Michel Foucault, whose History of Sexuality, Volume I emphasizes the difficulty of reconstructing the sexual ethos of another culture or historical period and who has inspired a generation of historians, literary scholars and cultural critics to grapple with sexuality in their work. By contrast, Crompton interprets his evidence quotes liberally from primary sources. Read as an anthology of those sources, Crompton's work will be valuable to scholars of all stripes.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Product Review
A treasure trove of compelling information. This marvelous bookis sure to become fundamental reading in gay and lesbian studies. -- Karla Jay, author of Tales of the Lavender Menace
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: Homosexuality and Civilization (Hardcover)
Louis Crompton has produced in HOMOSEXUALITY & CIVILZATION a definitive book about same sex relationships from the beginning of civilization to the present. Not only is this 624 page compendium thoroughly documented with copious footnotes, bibliography, valuable indices on both written content and illustrations, it is presented in an elegant format by Belknap Press of Harvard University Press - all of which become s additive but secondary to the brilliance of Crompton enlightened writing style. No dry treatise this, though the scholarly ethic is always in evidence. Crompton relates his reportage and commentary in a fluid, highly readable fashion, a fact that makes this book read like the great historical novel. Although others have written excellent 'justifications for homosexuality' on various platforms that usually seem to border on glorified gossip for a hungry audience of fellow travelers, Crompton relies on myriad quotaions from historical documents, poetry, stories, myths, histories, and intact evidence of teachings of the great minds from twenty-four centuries. He wisely begins with Early Greece then Classical Greece where love between males was glorified and honored, to Rome where same sex relationships were an integral part of the Roman warriors' lives. He quotes liberally from the poetry of Sappho, Homer, Plato, Ovid, Cicero etc and integrates the lyrical with the writings of Caesar and Alexander and other emperors and leaders. Then comes the change. With the introduction of 'Christianity which was born when Rome was stood at the peak of its power and Greek culture still dominated the Mediterranean world.' The single most destructive concept of homosexuality as an abomination and a crime worthy of (and receiving) the death penalty is the brief story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Even though Crompton demonstrates that the inception of the hate campaign resulting from this Judaic story may have originated from an incorrect translation from the Bible, this Levitical evidence was the reference used to torture, imprison, slaughter, and burn at the stake countless men and women who were even suspect of same sex love or who engaged in the act of sodomy. The Story marches forward like a pestilence through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance with the Inquisition only an example of the fury that the Church used to destroy sodomites, considered to be the cause of all misfortune in battles, disease, and civic unrest because of God's fury at peoples who allowed this crime. Make no mistake; Crompton does not march against the Church as the source of all evil in telling the story of the homosexuals' plight. He writes lyrically of the wonders of the Renaissance and the Papal patronage of the great master works of art in the history of Western Civilization. He quietly continues to demonstrate that these holy works were from the minds and hands of homosexual artists such as Michelangelo, da Vinci, Caravaggio, Botticelli, and Donatello. He talks about the Popes, the kings, the emperors, the famous men and women of the political and religious and artistic world who were known to be homosexual. Crompton does not exclude Eastern Civilization in his massive book. As a matter of fact his beautifully written accounts of Chinese and later, of Japanese histories provide a welcome breath of dignity to the ongoing slaughter and genocide of the homosexuals in Western Civilization. Because the Judaic Bible was not part of the culture of these civilizations, there was no rule or law against same sex relationships. Influenced by the Oriental mind being at one with nature include being at one with all beings in nature, and while it was accepted that unions between man and woman were necessary for the proliferation of their civilizations, more often than not the purer 'love and passion' stories were those between men. The Samurai are shown to be deeply involved with male lovers who were the driving force for valour on the battlefield. Once the atrocities of the Inquisition began to fade and the Age of Enlightenment and Reason altered man's view of the law as at least equal to the dogma of both the Papal authority and the Protestant Reformation, Crompton writes of the gradual decriminalization of homosexuality, examining the differences between the timelines of France, Spain, the Netherlands, England and the United States and leaves his thorough investigation in the Supreme Court ruling of June 26, 2003. "Our story concludes here, at the moment when executions finally cease in Europe. Looking back over twenty-four centuries, what pattern can we see in the dozen societies we have examined? Most striking, certainly, is the divide between those that called themselves Christian and those that flourished before or independently of Christianiy. In the first we find laws and preachings which promoted hatred, contempt, and death; in the second, varying attitudes, all of them (barring Islam, which, like Christianity, inherited the lethal tradition of the Hebrew scriptures) to a radical degree more tolerant." This book is not a light read; reading one chapter a day is about all we can fully absorb and relate to our own knowledge of history. But Crompton is both knowledgeable and a thoughtful writer. His book is generously illustrated with examples of paintings, sculptures, images of the people under discussion, and extant documents. One could comfortably use this book as a text for the general study of Civilization. The fact that Louis Crompton has added the parallel history of homosexuality to his intellectual tracing is a welcome addition to scholars and to all readers who long for an understanding of a topic that has rarely been more relevant than it is today. This is a brilliant book and an extraordinary achievement. Highly Recomended!!!
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Homosexuality and Civilization
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