The World Turned: Essays on Gay History, Politics, and Culture

This book reflects D'Emilio's roles as gay history scholar and policy director at the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF). It resembles both his rigorous scholarly "Sexual Politics,..." and his social commenting "Making Trouble." This book will be both a challenge and a pleasure to everyday gay folks and nerdy queer theorists. The book is a compilation of essays regarding gay rights in the 90s, civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, and other such topics. Some people may not like the scrapbook feel here. D'Emilio chose to start the work with the heady academic stuff and that may scare off readers who will really enjoy the rest of it. Many of the entries are speeches he gave and they become repetitive after a while. Still, he does a great job of assessing gay rights in the last decade and summarizing the struggle over the past half century. D'Emilio is ever the counterintuitive thinker, but that's exactly what open-minded gay people need to be reading. A lot of the chapters center upon boys, but D'Emilio still maintains his status as a very pro-feminist, anti-androcentric gay male theorist. He does include this chapter about his changing sex life which implies that he and his partner are celibate; a fact that I highly doubt. However, his discussion about NGLTF is wonderful; there hasn't been enough analysis of gay institutions. At times, the book is kinda preachy and defensive. Still, I'm glad he opens a space for gay work that is not as light as "The Advocate" but not as heavy as Foucault. He still shows that he's a sharp progressive thinker and many ppl would benefit by getting their hands on this book.