- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: University of Chicago Press; 2nd edition (9 Sep 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0226354601
- ISBN-13: 978-0226354606
- Product Dimensions: 23.5 x 16 x 4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 922,160 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
"With extraordinary precision, Matt Houlbrook maps the history of queer sociability in London during the first half of the twentieth century with significant and surprising results. This is an exceedingly important book." - John Howard, author of Men Like That"
Product Description
In August 1934, young Cyril L. wrote to his friend Billy about all the exciting men he had met, the swinging nightclubs he had visited, and the vibrant new life he had forged for himself in the big city. He wrote, "I have only been queer since I came to London about two years ago, before then I knew nothing about it." London, for Cyril, meant boundless opportunities to explore his newfound sexuality. But his freedom was limited: he was soon arrested, simply for being in a club frequented by queer men. Cyril's story is Matt Houlbrook's point of entry into the queer worlds of early twentieth-century London. Drawing on previously unknown sources, from police reports and newspaper exposes to personal letters, diaries, and the first queer guidebook ever written, Houlbrook here explores the relationship between queer sexualities and modern urban culture that we take for granted today. He revisits the diverse queer lives that took hold in London's parks and streets; its restaurants, pubs, and dancehalls; and its Turkish bathhouses and hotels - as well as attempts by municipal authorities to control and crack down on those worlds. He also describes how London shaped the culture and politics of queer life - and how London was in turn shaped by the lives of queer men. Ultimately, Houlbrook unveils the complex ways in which men made sense of their desires and who they were. In so doing, he mounts a sustained challenge to conventional understandings of the city as a place of sexual liberation and a unified queer culture. A history remarkable in its complexity yet intimate in its portraiture, Queer London is a landmark work that redefines queer urban life in England and beyond.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a thoroughly well researched academic book but you immediately notice how easy it is to read with a perfect balance between precise analysis and accessibility. The book uses numerous personal stories and examples to illustrate the various points and really draws you into the complex lives that were necessary for its subjects and the shadowy world they were forced to inhabit. This book will interest anyone who has even a passing interest in the subject and is well worth reading. It even looks good on your coffee table.
23 of 32 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If you're a gay man living in London in 2006, and you're regularly out on the scene, you have lots of gay friends, you perhaps go on gay holidays, you shop at gay stores, and are out at work, and you are generally proud of yourself ... but you sometimes wonder what life might have been like for your equivalents fifty years ago... then this book might shed some light on that question. Read it and realise how far we have come in that time. Here is a description of the entirely underground, secretive world with which you would have had to engage should you just have wanted to have a drink with like-minded souls in London in the first half of the 20th century. Don't let anyone tell you "things were better in the old days" because here is definite evidence to the contrary - things were quite obviously very bad indeed at that time for London's gay men, and presumably worse in the provinces.
Don't expect amusing anecdotes though - the tone of the book is somewhat dry, and there are very few illustrations, but this is not meant to be light-hearted reading by any means - more a valid document of a difficult subject.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
A dry, technical, and academic look at queer subculture
3 Mar 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
A dry, technical, and academic look at queer subculture in London between 1918 and 1957. Interesting in that it reduces to a science the rather inexpressible notions and progressions of gay life. There is certainly a parallel to be found between the passive->excluded->marginalized->subculture->pride progression of gays and other social movements. Houlbrook tries to weave in personal stories that humanize the concepts presented, and while he does a good job in those parts, the people reading such a book are in no need of convincing; the parts serve only to make the technical bits endurable. A great book, I'm sure, for academics, but not for pleasure reading.
Continued at: [...]
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A brilliant history!
22 Mar 2011
Format:Paperback
Perhaps it isn't for non-academics. But this book is an invaluable examination of the tension between public v. private and the ways in which queer subculture played out in the metropole of London. With a vast array of sources, Houlbrook challenges the traditional Whiggish history that suggests there was a "coming out" moment for gay men in London. He skillfully recreates the "underground" society of queer culture that emerged in response to police scrutiny and the increasingly private culture of homosexuality in the 20th century. His four main sections on Police, Places, People, and Politics create an easy to follow structure, and his thread of the public and private practices of queer culture are thoroughly refreshing. This is a must read, perhaps not for the public at large, but for grad students, professors, and those interested in a new interpretation of the progression of gay rights and culture in Europe.
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