What do you think?
Rate this book
Gay Life Stories
A fascinating portrait of gay men and women throughout time and across the globe whose lives have influenced society at large, as well as what we recognize as today's varied gay culture, this book gives a voice to more than 80 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 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.
304 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2012
14 people are currently reading
411 people want to read
About the author
Robert Aldrich
48 books9 followersRobert Aldrich is an Australian historian and writer. Aldrich is a Professor of European History, he teaches and researches modern European and colonial history, including the history of France since the Revolution, the history of the French and British overseas empires, the history of 'sites of memory' and the history of gender and sexuality.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 9, 2023
This a wonderful collection of brief biographies/lives of gay men and women through history and from around the globe but, let's be honest, it far more thorough and accurate in its coverage of Europeans and of the last two hundred years. But that is inevitable, to do any kind of real justice to the complex and multifaceted sexualities of places like pre-conquest Mexico and Central and South America, Oceania, China never mind India would have made a work of impossible length. But don't imagine Robert Aldritch is either ignorant or Eurocentric in his outlook. He is an author of the finest, and most readable (how rarely those two words go together) account of the way western gay men and women were influenced by what they experienced in various colonies (the book is called 'Colonialism and Homosexuality' and highly recommend it). He has no illusions about the effect of European interventions around the globe.
Research goes on so I have no doubt that some of the lives covered are need of an update but as most readable, entertaining and information collective biography it is much more then a reference work and until someone produces a better one an essentil reading tool and a book well worth owning.
Research goes on so I have no doubt that some of the lives covered are need of an update but as most readable, entertaining and information collective biography it is much more then a reference work and until someone produces a better one an essentil reading tool and a book well worth owning.
December 20, 2018
SPECTACULARLY RICH ON EVERY LEVEL, THIS FED MY SOUL, READ IT ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
July 27, 2017
Varied and easy to read. I have loved the book, yet I do have some comments.
To start with, it could be queer-er —there are lots of boxes in which people are made to fit. It's a bit essentialist at times —non-cis experiences, bisexuality or non-monogamy are considered in passing even when they seem the simplest explanation to some people's life arrangements (maybe it's just me?).
There are way more cis men than any kind women and my spider sense detects a whiff of misogyny on occasion, with female acquaintances and lovers of “gay” (I'd say: bi) men not mentioned by name or given any depth.
Sex with underage participants and commercial sex are presented mostly without comment.
My own wondering thought at the end: why is it that men (overwhelmingly men) express such preference for young humans? And why does this trouble them specially when those young humans are not girls or young women?
To start with, it could be queer-er —there are lots of boxes in which people are made to fit. It's a bit essentialist at times —non-cis experiences, bisexuality or non-monogamy are considered in passing even when they seem the simplest explanation to some people's life arrangements (maybe it's just me?).
There are way more cis men than any kind women and my spider sense detects a whiff of misogyny on occasion, with female acquaintances and lovers of “gay” (I'd say: bi) men not mentioned by name or given any depth.
Sex with underage participants and commercial sex are presented mostly without comment.
My own wondering thought at the end: why is it that men (overwhelmingly men) express such preference for young humans? And why does this trouble them specially when those young humans are not girls or young women?
July 7, 2018
The people featured were varied and it was interesting and easy to read. However, it suffered from a certain white-cis-gay-man bias, and tended to ignore or minimise gender variance or bisexuality in those it features.
Read
June 18, 2022A readable primer for a newly out teenager, but generally more useful for its bibliography than the text itself. I find it annoying when a book with photography in does not actually provide images of the artwork actually referenced. More worryingly, Aldrich is oddly blasé about the large numbers of racist colonial pedophiles he includes (sometimes uncomfortably focusing on the beauty of these underage or barely of age boys) and generally elides bisexuality, transness and misogyny, as well as mentioning the political beliefs of the 20th century figures when they were explicitly anti-fascist, but generally failing to do so when they had fascist or antisemitic leanings. Of course, Aldrich could not have picked apart the nuances of every evil in his limited word count, but, given how often pedophilia recurs in this book and his sometimes bizarre choices of exclusion/inclusion (why include Donald Friend - a man who raped his prepubescent Balinese houseboys - over, say, James Baldwin or Bayard Rustin?), his reluctance to engage with the spectre of pedophilia in more depth adds up to a book which implicitly aggrandises some, not uniquely but notably, heinous people, whether gay or not.
September 13, 2023
While thorough researched, some stories, wether by its nature or by the way they were written, were simply more engaging than others. Also, the book’s structure made it repetitive at times, because some of the stories compiled felt the same. Maybe to separate them in alphabetical order, or with less similar themes, would’ve been good. Nevertheless, this is great LGBT+ education.
March 20, 2017
Eleanor Butler & Sarah Ponsonby, Annemarie Schwarzenbach, Lilly Wust & Felice Schragenheim, Nobuko Yoshiya, Rosa Bonheur.
<3 for mentions of Sappho, Walt Whitman, Harvey Milk and Reinaldo Arenas from Cuba.
<3 for mentions of Sappho, Walt Whitman, Harvey Milk and Reinaldo Arenas from Cuba.
April 24, 2018
Fantastic wide-varied lives!
A fascinating read.
A fascinating read.
July 10, 2018
gay rights! - jennifer lawrence
July 15, 2023
This was definitely educational and sooo intriguinging. Amazing book.
August 17, 2017
All these little glimpses of people's lives really gives an insight into the breadth and width of queer lives throughout time and space. Really fascinating, and it's not limited to just western stories either, which is nice.
June 18, 2022
An absolutely fascinating read about people who lived lives ‘openly’ gay from ancient history to the 20th century. I learned a huge amount!
Most characters are covered in only a few pages and there is normally a photograph of the individual with their limited biography.
The author made his selection based on information available and generally of interest at the time and chose the title Gay Life Stories as that is what the book covers.
If you are so woke you want 21st century and trans people included then might I suggest you read a book with an alternative title …. or better still write your own book.
I thought this an excellent, thoughtful and thoroughly enjoyable read!
Most characters are covered in only a few pages and there is normally a photograph of the individual with their limited biography.
The author made his selection based on information available and generally of interest at the time and chose the title Gay Life Stories as that is what the book covers.
If you are so woke you want 21st century and trans people included then might I suggest you read a book with an alternative title …. or better still write your own book.
I thought this an excellent, thoughtful and thoroughly enjoyable read!
November 11, 2016
Interesting to read about the lives of gay people who defined their sexual identity when this was still a rather new concept.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews