From Publishers Weekly
Katz (Gay American History) argues that heterosexuality is a social construct rather than a natural, unambiguous given. He notes that the terms heterosexual and homosexual were coined in 1868 by German sex-law reformer Karl Maria Kertbeny and did not gain wide currency until the early 20th century. Katz contends that heterosexuality as a universal, presumed, normative ideal was invented by men, such as Kertbeny, Sigmund Freud and German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing. Prior to the late 19th century, he maintains, the social universe was not polarized into "hetero" and "homo." The examples he cites in support of his thesis-ancient Greece, the new England colonies (1607-1740) and the U.S. between 1820 and 1850-do not substantiate Katz's claims. Nevertheless, this often provocative work challenges rigid notions of gender identity, building on the ideas of French historian Michel Foucault and on feminist critiques of heterosexuality by Betty Friedan, Kate Millett, Adrienne Rich and others.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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From Library Journal
Although we take for granted that heterosexuality is and has always been the sexual norm, historian Katz reexamines the constructions of sexual identity and postulates that heterosexuality has a history that has heretofore never been analyzed and that "such privileging of the norm accedes to its domination." Tracing the first appearance of the terms heterosexual and homosexual in 1868 in Germany, the author of Gay American History (LJ 12/15/76) analyzes the changes in usage in dictionaries, medical journals, and a wide variety of other published sources. Carefully building his argument using Richard von Krafft-Ebing's and Sigmund Freud's seminal theories in the creation of heterosexuality, he goes on to challenge such influential figures as Alfred Charles Kinsey, Betty Friedan, and Michel Foucault. This provocatively original research, recalling similar problematizations of race, gender, and other seemingly immutable, ahistorical constructs, is complemented by Gore Vidal's foreword and Lisa Duggan's afterword. For informed readers.
James E. Van Buskirk, San Francisco P.L.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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