Homosexuality & Civilization

by Louis Crompton

Book Overview

How have major civilizations of the last two millennia treated people who were attracted to their own sex? In a narrative tour de force, Louis Crompton chronicles the lives and achievements of homosexual men and women alongside a darker history of persecution, as he compares the Christian West with the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, Arab Spain, imperial China, and pre-Meiji Japan.

Ancient Greek culture celebrated same-sex love...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674022335
• ISBN13: 9780674022331
• Release Date: October 2006
• Publisher: Belknap Press
• Length: 648 Pages
• Weight: 1.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.6" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Excellent work and exemplarly scholarship

Crompton's work, "Homosexuality and Civilization," is a monumental piece of history and contrary to the popular bromide of Boswell and Foucault, represents real, cogent scholarship. Crompton offers an even-handed and exhaustive review of the history of homosexuality from early civilization, to the close of the Enlightenment. I strongly suggest for readers interested in gay and lesbian history, who are searching for an introductory overview thereof, this title. It offers a far more realistic and defensible interpretation of homosexuality throughout history than one is likely to find in the confused and fallacious works of other prominent workers (e.g., the aforementioned Boswell and Foucault). As other reviewers have noted, the book is extremely impressive from a stylistic standpoint, and as per their usual quality of work, the Belknap Press has turned out a marvelous volume. Crompton deserves the highest praise for his book.

GAY HISTORY RECLAIMED: THE KEY SURVEY

Crompton's "Homosexuality and Civilization" seems destined to become the definitive one-volume history of same-sex relations--and it comes at a critical period. Essential to the suppression of gay people in the West was the denial that they contributed positively to history; that history came very close to being effaced altogether. Just as the first gay historians after Stonewall began to reclaim that history, gay French philosopher Michel Foucault mischievously denied that homosexuality existed at all before the term was coined in the 1890s. This academic fashion caused many to refuse to consider fascinating new same-sex testimony from the past just as it appeared--a skepticism heteros would never dream of applying to their own sexual history. Crompton is post-theory, post-faction: instead of denying gay men had a history, he says, just read the first-person accounts from different times and places and respect what they plainly say. He does just that in this elegant, readable journey through Christian, Islamic, and Asian same-sex history. But Crompton also makes two landmark contributions well beyond the requirements of survey. First, he fingers the one person who actually invented Western homophobia: Philo Judeus. Jewish philosopher in Alexandria and contemporary of Christ, this titanic figure is at least as important to history as St. Augustine, and like Augustine, presents both light and dark sides. On the good side, he created the template for Christianity. Responding to the mounting fashion for monotheism in the ancient world, and to the deep respect Romans had for the Jewish equation of law with divinity, Philo sought to reinvent Judaism as a Gentile-friendly universal religion released from its tribal particularity. He was blocked in this effort by purists in Jerusalem who insisted on circumcision (meaning, for the convert, adult circumcision without anaesthetic) and obeisance to the Temple, which on high holy days turned into the largest assembly-line slaughterhouse in the world. Both requirements were deal-breakers for pagans. But Philo's student St. Paul successfully applied this template to the new cult of Christianity. On the negative side, it was Philo who first interpreted the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah as punishing homosexuality, which no one else, including Jesus, thought it was. His interpretation became, to this day, the key rationale for the persecution of gay people in Christendom. Thanks to Crompton, now we know who did it. Crompton's second great contribution is to extend same-sex history, virtually for the first time, to China and Japan. Gay men often ask, what kind of society would result if there were no taboos, if men could love whomever they want? For two thousand years, until the 19th century, this answer could be found in China and Japan. As long as a man did his dynastic duty siring children, he could do anything else he wanted sexually. The result was a broad middle area of opportunistic bisexuality fl

Brilliant, incredilbly well researched history

While the book is highly academic and authoritative, it is also very accessible and enjoyable to read. Here is a very brief summary: The book begins with a chapter on Early Greece (776-480 BCE). Crompton points to the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus (in the Iliad) as "exemplars of male love." He goes on to point out: · Greek poets sang of male love from almost the earliest fragments down to the end of classical time. · Mythology provides over 50 examples of homoerotic love, especially love by Gods of male youths · "Man-boy relations played a significant part in the social organization of such Dorian communities as Crete and Sparta" · In some Greek communities it was the boy's physical beauty that was desired, in others it was his character that was admired · In nearly every classical Greek community, the homosexual relationship between an older man and a younger boy was not only accepted, it was admired and held as a civic virtue and a bulwark against tyranny. · Man-boy love was used in many communities (e.g., Sparta) as a means of military training and indoctrination In the second chapter, on Judea, he points out that the early Jewish customs and laws were strongly opposed to homosexuality, though he does show that the destruction of Sodom was originally attributed to failure of the city to live up to its obligations of hospitality, and only much later (in Catholic teaching) was Sodom's destruction associated with homosexuality. The third chapter focuses on Classical Greece (480-323 BCE) and shows that here too, Homosexuality and bisexuality were not only considered perfectly natural, but were acclaimed at every level of society. Many Greek writers, playwrights and philosophers not only practiced homosexuality and pederasty, they praised it and held it up as an ideal. Plato was a notable exception who held boy-love as an ideal as long as it was not consummated. In Thebes, a general argued that pairs of man/boy lovers would make great warriors because they would fight for one another's safety and would fear cowardice in the eyes of their beloved. He created the "Sacred Band of Thebes" which became the most powerful army on earth, and which made Thebes the greatest military power. Chapter 4 turns to Rome, where homosexuality was more constrained: it was considered fine to have homosexual sex with a slave so long as the free man was dominant, but it was shameful to have homosexual sex with a free born person or as the passive partner. Crompton notes that homosexuality was seen as part of the "will to power" and a type of dominance. He also notes that the famous Roman poet Ovid wrote many homoerotic poems, though he decried Lesbianism as unacceptable. Chapter 5 turns to the early Christians, and here everything changes. While homosexuality was not a central issue in early Christianity, Paul

A Brilliantly Researched, Illustrated and Written History

Louis Crompton has produced in HOMOSEXUALITY & CIVILZATION a definitive book about same sex relationships from the beginning of civilization to the present. Not only is this 624 page compendium thoroughly documented with copious footnotes, bibliography, valuable indices on both written content and illustrations, it is presented in an elegant format by Belknap Press of Harvard University Press - all of which become s additive but secondary to the brilliance of Crompton enlightened writing style. No dry treatise this, though the scholarly ethic is always in evidence. Crompton relates his reportage and commentary in a fluid, highly readable fashion, a fact that makes this book read like the great historical novel.Although others have written excellent 'justifications for homosexuality' on various platforms that usually seem to border on glorified gossip for a hungry audience of fellow travelers, Crompton relies on myriad quotaions from historical documents, poetry, stories, myths, histories, and intact evidence of teachings of the great minds from twenty-four centuries. He wisely begins with Early Greece then Classical Greece where love between males was glorified and honored, to Rome where same sex relationships were an integral part of the Roman warriors' lives. He quotes liberally from the poetry of Sappho, Homer, Plato, Ovid, Cicero etc and integrates the lyrical with the writings of Caesar and Alexander and other emperors and leaders.Then comes the change. With the introduction of 'Christianity which was born when Rome was stood at the peak of its power and Greek culture still dominated the Mediterranean world.' The single most destructive concept of homosexuality as an abomination and a crime worthy of (and receiving) the death penalty is the brief story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Even though Crompton demonstrates that the inception of the hate campaign resulting from this Judaic story may have originated from an incorrect translation from the Bible, this Levitical evidence was the reference used to torture, imprison, slaughter, and burn at the stake countless men and women who were even suspect of same sex love or who engaged in the act of sodomy. The Story marches forward like a pestilence through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance with the Inquisition only an example of the fury that the Church used to destroy sodomites, considered to be the cause of all misfortune in battles, disease, and civic unrest because of God's fury at peoples who allowed this crime. Make no mistake; Crompton does not march against the Church as the source of all evil in telling the story of the homosexuals' plight. He writes lyrically of the wonders of the Renaissance and the Papal patronage of the great master works of art in the history of Western Civilization. He quietly continues to demonstrate that these holy works were from the minds and hands of homosexual artists such as Michelangelo, da Vinci, Caravaggio, Botticelli, and Donatello. He talks about

Civilized Scholarship

Homosexuality and Civilization is a monumental yet compendious book. The fruit of decades of scholarship in primary documents, it is written in Louis Crompton's customary, classy style: easy, open, colloquial. Some of you may know his excellent book on Shaw. Especially interesting is this book's focus on various cultures' laws concerning homosexuality because it enables Crompton to get around the claims of certain cultures that homosexuality barely exists within them. Belknap Press has done itself great credit in providing enriching (and expensive) art work illustrations yet keeping the book's cost very reasonable.