The Gay 100

📖 The Scoop

Gay men and lesbians can claim a rich history. But how is that varied and evolving culture defined? What individuals, both past and present, have helped shape gay and lesbian identity as we currently understand it? Who, exactly, are the homosexual men and women who have paved the way for gay men and lesbians to be who and where they are today? Spanning 2400 years of history - from Socrates and Sappho to Michelangelo Signorile and Madonna, from Oscar Wilde and Radclyffe Hall to Rock Hudson and Martina Navratilova, from Leonardo da Vinci and Alexander the Great to Liberace and Larry Kramer - The Gay 100 charts the range, diversity, and possibilities of gay and lesbian life. Paul Russell has selected and then ranked the 100 individuals - writers, thinkers, artists, musicians, military leaders, politicians, those active in the gay rights movement - who have had the greatest effect on that collective life. In evaluating their contributions and weighing their influence - how each affected both history in general and gay/lesbian identity in particular - he has constructed a lens through which we can trace the evolution of gay consciousness and the quest for real equality and visibility. Uncensored, celebratory, and intelligently subjective, this book recovers the lives of men and women whose contributions may have outlived their names, documents the long shadows cast by certain courageous and exemplary figures, and restores to the biographies of influential gay men and lesbians the all-too-often suppressed story of their sexuality. The Gay 100 is certain to vex, enlighten, and entertain readers with who's on, who's off, and who's where on the list. It is sure to take its place as one of the most important, debated, and frequently sought books about the gay and lesbian experience. -- from dust jacket.

Genre: History / LGBTQ (fancy, right?)