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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.Read more ›
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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.
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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.Read more ›
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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.Read more ›
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