3 results for "History"

Homosexual: oppression & liberation

Altman, Dennis
The groundbreaking modern classic that forged a new language of homosexual politics. When Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation was first published in 1971, Martin Duberman, writing in the New York Review of Books, hailed it as 'the only work that bears comparison, in terms of sustained analysis and theoretical complexity, with the best to appear from Women's Liberation'. Time commented, 'among the whole tumble of homosexuals who have 'come out of the closet', perhaps best amoung these accounts is this book by Dennis Altman.' Long out of print, Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation stands as an early work in the gay liberation movement that recognised the divisions within that movement as a form of healthy diversity, trying to explain each position and abstaining from accusations. Altman draws on the writings of the emergent movement and of such figures as James Baldwin, Allen Ginsberg, Christopher Isherwood, Herbert Marcuse, and Kate Millett. His objective is to propose ways we can create a common community and a progressive movement out of our shared sexuality and experience of a heterosexist society; a concern still central today.
University of Queensland Press 2012 277 pages

God save the Queen: the strange persistence of monarchies

Altman, Dennis
"An avowed republican investigates the unexpected durability and potential benefits of constitutional monarchies. When he was deposed in Egypt in 1952, King Farouk predicted that there would be five monarchs left at the end of the century- the kings of hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades, and of England. To date, his prediction has proved wrong, and while the twentieth century saw the collapse of monarchies across Europe, many democratic societies have remained monarchies. God Save the Queen is the first book to look at constitutional monarchies globally, and is particularly relevant given the pro-democracy movement in Thailand and recent scandals around the British and Spanish royal families. Is monarchy merely a feudal relic that should be abolished, or does the division between ceremonial and actual power act as a brake on authoritarian politicians? And what is the role of monarchy in the independent countries of the Commonwealth that have retained the Queen as head of state? This book suggests that monarchy deserves neither the adulation of the right nor the dismissal of the left. In an era of autocratic populism, does constitutional monarchy provide some safeguards against the megalomania of political leaders? Is a President Boris potentially more dangerous than a Prime Minister Boris?"--Publisher's description.
Scribe Publications 2021 153 pages