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A review by nearfutures
A Little Gay History: Desire and Diversity Around the World by R.B. Parkinson
4.0
A Little Gay History is a succinct introduction to the history of global same-sex desire, explored through the lens of objects in the British Museum. The bulk of the book is various artifact profiles from 9000 BC to 1997, discussing their features, meaning, and culture context. An archaeologist specializing in one of these eras/cultures might find it rudimentary but this book is not called A Dissertation On Same-Sex Desire In The Han Dynasty, it’s A Little Gay History, and I’m not an archaeologist. It was a quick and accessible read would be a wonderful coffee table book if my new apartment had a coffee table.
Two minor quibbles:
• The introduction could have done more to explain how gender nonconformity and same-sex desire and sex acts have merged and shifted into contemporary gay identity (think Halperin’s "How to Do the History of Male Homosexuality"); the front cover says "gay" but the introduction claims to cover gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender history. I can see where it is coming from but without additional context the book seems (and is, to an extent) disproportionately weighted towards gay male history. Which would be a fine project but not what the book purports to pursue.
• All of the artifacts are from the British Museum, and I think partially as a result the book is very light on non-ancient Egyptian African and Latin American gay history.
Two minor quibbles:
• The introduction could have done more to explain how gender nonconformity and same-sex desire and sex acts have merged and shifted into contemporary gay identity (think Halperin’s "How to Do the History of Male Homosexuality"); the front cover says "gay" but the introduction claims to cover gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender history. I can see where it is coming from but without additional context the book seems (and is, to an extent) disproportionately weighted towards gay male history. Which would be a fine project but not what the book purports to pursue.
• All of the artifacts are from the British Museum, and I think partially as a result the book is very light on non-ancient Egyptian African and Latin American gay history.