The Rise of Gay Rights and the Fall of the British Empire: Liberal Resistance and the Bloomsbury Group

by David A.J. Richards

This book argues that there is an important connection between ethical resistance to British imperialism and the ethical discovery of gay rights. By closely examining the roots of liberal resistance in Britain and resistance to patriarchy in the United States, this book shows that fighting the demands of patriarchal manhood and womanhood plays an important role in countering imperialism. Advocates of feminism and gay rights (in particular, the Bloomsbury Group in Britain) play an important public function in the criticism of imperialism because they resist the gender binary's role in rationalizing sexism and homophobia in both public and private life. The connection between the rise of gay rights and the fall of empire illuminates larger questions of the meaning of democracy and of universal human rights as shared human values that have appeared since World War II. The book also casts doubt on the thesis that arguments for gay rights must be extrinsic to democracy, and that they must reflect Western, as opposed to “African” or “Asian,” values. To the contrary, gay rights arise from within liberal democracy, and its critics polemically use such opposition to cover and rationalize their own failures of democracy.

Genres: LGBT, Nonfiction

282 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Charles Stephen · Rating 2 out of 5]

One thing is certain about the author, David A. J. Richards: he sees the world and all academic disciplines through a lens of patriarchy.

Much is lost, I feel, when a scholar ranges over centuries of human history with a magnifying glass of patriarchal notions, and not much is learned, revealed, or elucidated. To drag in the Bloomsbury Group as a hook for all these notions about patriarchy is deeply regrettable, because I don't think the authoritative scholarly work about them as a group has yet been written. [If anyone knows of such a book, please let me know.]

Furthermore, no serious scholarship underpins the author's assertions. I got the feeling that Richards had cherrypicked sources from a small group of scholars with whom he agreed, and the footnoting in many places is embarrassingly thin. The author repeats himself in several places, and, I believe, referenced some assertions he made in the book as though they were authoritative sources.

Finally, I can't believe that Cambridge University Press would publish such a jumble of confused ideas and unsubstantiated assertions.

This review is not an endorsement of amazon.com or any business owned by Jeff Bezos. Books for my reviews were checked out from a public library, purchased from a local brick-and-mortar book shop, or ordered from my favorite website for rare and out-of-print books.

[Ron Stafford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting read. People the world over, have the Bloomsbury group to thank for a lot of the modern thought we have. This little nucleus of folks really modernized and changed the way we look at and approach the world. They laid the way for a lot of change.