"At various times, homosexuality has been considered the noblest of loves, a horrible sin, a psychological condition or grounds for torture and execution. David F. Greenberg’s careful, encyclopedic and important new book argues that homosexuality is only deviant because society has constructed, or defined, it as deviant. The book takes us over vast terrains of example and detail in the history of homosexuality."—Nicholas B. Dirks, New York Times Book Review

CONTENTS:

Acknowledgments
1. Theorizing the Prohibition against Homosexuality
Part I. Before Homosexuality
2. Homosexual Relations in Kinship-Structured Societies
3. Inequality and the State: Homosexual Innovations in Archaic Civilizations
4. Early Civilizations: Variations on Homosexual Themes
5. Sexual Asceticism in the Ancient World
6. Feudalism
Part II. The Construction of Modern Homosexuality
7. Repression and the Emergence of Subcultures
8. The Rise of Market Economies
9. The Medicalization of Homosexuality
10. Bureaucracy and Homosexuality
11. Gay Liberation
Epilogue: Under the Sign of Sociology
References
Index

AUTHOR:

David F. Greenberg is professor of sociology at New York University.