Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation

A pleasure…a really sensitive, lucid account of his personal liberation…a penetrating analysis of the political premises and goals and philosophical background of the movement. –The New York Times The one to read…may very well be the most intelligible and best written books on the subject. –The Minneapolis Tribune When Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation was first published in 1971, The New York Review of Books, hailed it as the only work that bears comparison…with the best to appear from Women’s Liberation. Time wrote that, among the whole tumble of homosexuals who have ‘come out of the closet’, perhaps best among these accounts is a book by Dennis Altman. Long out of print, Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation remains a seminal work in the gay liberation movement. Altman examines the different positions promoting gay liberation, and recognizes the healthy diversity in these divisions. Elaborating on the writers of the emergent movement–James Baldwin, Allen Ginsberg, Christopher Isherwood, Herbert Marcuse, Kate Millett, and others–Homosexual suggests that we can nurture a common, progressive movement out of our shared sexuality and experience of a heterosexist society. Today, in the age of AIDS, ACT UP, and Queer Nation, the possibility of such commonality is of critical importance. Jeffrey Weeks’s new introduction places Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation in its historical context, while the author’s new afterword examines its significance in light of today’s lesbian and gay movement.