Product Description

A unique and hugely absorbing narrative history of gay life-from Oscar Wilde to the first gay marriage performed in San Francisco in 2004-by the award-winning journalist and distinguished author of Out in the World and Sex- Crime Panic. Miller accompanies his narrative with essays and excerpts from contemporary and historical writings, and the text is illustrated with photos and line drawings.

Neil Miller is the author of Sex-Crime Panic and winner of the 2003 Randy Shilts Award for nonfiction and an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book. He is also the author of In Search of Gay America, winner of the 1990 American Library Association prize for gay and lesbian literature. He teaches journalism and nonfiction writing at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #231127 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 408 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Bachelor lawyer Abraham Lincoln shared a bed with Illinois storekeeper Joshua Speed for three years starting in 1839. Because of its portrayal of a lesbian "Boston marriage," Henry James's The Bostonians was omitted from the 26-volume Scribner edition of his works published 1907-1917. The facts recounted in this chronicle of gay and lesbian history from Walt Whitman to the movie Philadelphia range from the trivial to the interesting to the revelatory, with chapter-length narratives on the Harlem Renaissance and Paris in the 1920s; the Oscar Wilde and Radclyffe Hall trials; the romantic relationships between Eleanor Roosevelt and reporter Lorena Hickok; homosexual entanglements among the Bloomsbury set; and Native American men who dressed and lived as women. Miller (Out in America) uses a conventional textbook style that at times infuriates with the simplicity of its tone. Although he uses fairly well-known primary source material, his excerpts are intriguing: A moving passage from Marvin Leibman's Coming Out Conservative illustrates his experience with discrimination in the military during WWII; Gide's autobiography recaptures his impression of meeting Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas at 25. This overview shows how some recent advances merely reprise gains made and lost in the past; while some past activities outdid anything in the present. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Miller applies his sturdy journalist's prose to the task of producing a popular history of gay men and lesbians since the coining of the word homosexuality in an anonymous German pamphlet in 1869. Drawing on the large library of self-consciously gay scholarship amassed since the 1969 birth of gay liberation, Miller treats each major topic as it arises in the historical record. Many of the resulting 31 chapters include, besides the main narrative, excerpts from writings and sidebars on figures or developments germane to the chapter subjects. Although Miller covers recent developments in other parts of the world quite well, this is, because of the way gay history has unfolded during the past 125 years, an account of events primarily in the West--indeed, mostly in the U.S. Reflecting, perhaps, the secular and leftist biases rampant among gay writers and activists, Miller overlooks two major developments--the growth of gay religious groups and the burgeoning of political conservatism among gay male intellectuals--but he's no radical toady, and what he does cover he presents fairly and very accessibly. Ray Olson

Edmund White
"Out of the Past is the best introduction to the lesbian and gay past and present that I know of. Its scope is vast, its style lucid, its understanding extraordinary."

Customer Reviews

An excellent read.
As a young member of the GLBT community, I have much to learn. But having read this book, I definitely have better knowledge and perspective about gay and lesbian history. I especially like that Miller included excerpts from a diverse range of literary pieces and explained what references he used, stimulating the reader's (or at least my own) interest in other gay and lesbian books.

Fascinating History
Neil Miller's done a great job of pulling together aspects of (western) gay history. I've read some of the sources for his lesbian chapters and he uses them intelligently to summarise main points. I assume he's does the same with the male stuff and material from other countries which was previously unfamiliar to me. His style is readable, succinct and balanced about how we look at the past from our current viewpoints.

One feature of the book which is particularly pleasing is his use of extracts from writings he's referred to in his central text. This adds a good variety to the voice of the work AND the extracts are long enough (two or more pages in length) to inspire further study.

I also like A) the pictures of famous historical figures, there's something particularly moving about them, (I never knew Willa Cather was so gorgeous!)

and B) the balance of genders and countries covered is better than average.

My advice - read it!

A GREAT SURVEY OF GAY HISTORY
If you are interested in history, I highly suggest this book. Marginalized for eons, gay people are now an integral part of history. Relegated to the backburner, or whispered about in history sources, gay people have come forward with a great history. Within this collection, there are heartaches and triumphs, but always searching for the ideal of equality one day. Another good thing about this book is that it includes non-Western gay and lesbian history as well, yet another subject ignored by the "mainstream" history. An incredibly transfixing and fascinating book, I couldn't put it down, and read into the late hours of the evening.