Jesse Monteagudo: This review was originally published in Gay Today (Vol. VII Issue 147). It is reprinted with permission from www.gaytoday.com online. Jesse Monteagudo is a freelance writer and gay book lover who lives in South Florida with his life partner. He can be reached at jessemonteagudo@aol.com online.
Scandal is a popular history of the events that it calls “the cornerstone incidents of modern gay political history”. This is a bit far-fetched, sort of like calling a book about the Teapot Dome Scandal, Watergate, Iran-Contra and the Monica Lewinsky Affair “the cornerstone incidents of modern American political history”.
Scandal relates, in no particular order, the tales of Roger Casement, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Radclyffe Hall, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, Simon Nkoli, Reinaldo Arenas and Prince Philip zu Eulenberg. In each case (except perhaps Burgess and Maclean), the subjects' homosexuality led directly to their downfall, persecution or death. This in turn led to an increased public awareness of homosexuality and a backlash that affected other lesbians and gay men.
Scandal will not take the place of standard biographies or histories: 210 pages are not enough to adequately cover one gay controversy, much less seven. It is also very selective, leaving out major events in major countries like, say, the United States. (Where are the blacklists of the McCarthy Era?) Still, Scandal is a good introduction to some of the last century's scandals; one that will hopefully inspire readers to seek more substantial resources.
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