Lesbian Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History: Critical Readings is an authoritative four-volume survey of the seminal essays on the subject from the last half century. It traces both the intellectual arc and larger theoretical implications of the field, including Queer Theory, which emerged from this scholarship in the early 1990s. Edited by Michael Bronski, a world-renowned, leading scholar in the field, the four volumes cover theory, the pre-modern period, the modern era and contemporary times. As well as substantial contextualizing editor introductions for each book, there are 64 individual essays included across the set, with relationships, identity, community, politics and LGBT around the world all key topics at the heart of this vital collection. This is an essential resource for all scholars interested in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history and LGBT studies more generally.

Both comprehensive and accessible, this book restores the visibility of people relegated to the margins of history to make the provocative claim that LGBT history is American history.

2014 Lambda Literary Award Finalist: LGBT Nonfiction
Breaks down the most commonly held misconceptions about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their lives
In ""You Can Tell Just by Looking"" three scholars and activists come together to unpack enduring, popular, and deeply held myths about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, culture, and life in America. Myths, such as "All Religions Condemn Homosexuality" and "Transgender People Are Mentally Ill," have been used to justify discrimination and oppression of LGBT people. Others, such as "Homosexuals Are Born That Way," have been embraced by LGBT communities and their allies. In discussing and dispelling these myths--including gay-positive ones--the authors challenge readers to question their own beliefs and to grapple with the complexities of what it means to be queer in the broadest social, political, and cultural sense.

"Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage" reframes the family-rights debate by arguing that marriage shouldn't bestow special legal privileges upon couples because people, both heterosexual and LGBT, live in a variety of relationships-including unmarried couples of any sexual orientation, single-parent households, extended biological family units, and myriad other familial configurations. Nancy D. Polikoff shows how the law can value all families, and why it must.

Engaging and largely untold, "From the Closet to the Courtroom" explores how five pivotal lawsuits have altered LGBT history. Beginning each case narrative at the center--with the litigants and their lawyers--law professor Carlos Ball follows the stories behind each crucial lawsuit. He traces the parties from their communities to the courtroom, while deftly weaving in rich sociohistorical context and analyzing the lasting legal and political impact of each judicial outcome.

Long before the rise of the modern gay movement, an unnoticed literary revolution was occurring, mostly between the covers of the cheaply produced pulp paperbacks of the post-World War II era. Cultural critic Michael Bronski collects a sampling of these now little-known gay erotic writings—some by writers long forgotten, some never known and a few now famous. Through them, Bronski challenges many long-held views of American postwar fiction and the rise of gay literature, as well as of the culture at large.

A panoramic view of gay rights, gay life, and the gay experience around the world. In Global Gay, Frederic Martel visits more than fifty countries and documents a revolution underway around the world: the globalization of LGBT rights. From Saudi Arabia to South Africa, from Amsterdam to Tel Aviv, from Singapore to the United States, activists, culture warriors, and ordinary people are part of a movement. Martel interviews the proprietor of a "gay-friendly" cafe in Amman, Jordan; a Cuban-American television journalist in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; a South African jurist who worked with Nelson Mandela to enshrine gay rights in the country's constitution; an American lawyer who worked on the campaign for marriage equality; an Egyptian man who fled his country after escaping a raid on a gay club; and many others. He tells us that in China, homosexuality is neither prohibited nor permitted, and that much Chinese gay life takes place on social media; that in Iran, because of the strict separation of the sexes, it seems almost easier to be gay than heterosexual; and that Raul Castro's daughter, a gay rights icon in Cuba, expressed her lingering anti-American sentiments by calling for Pride celebrations in May rather than June. Ten countries maintain the death penalty for homosexuals. "Homophobia is what Arab governments give to Islamists to keep them calm," one activist tells Martel. Martel finds that although the "gay American way of life" has created a global template for gay activism and culture, each country offers distinctly local variations. And around the world, the status of gay rights has become a measure of a country's democracy and modernity. This English edition, which has been thoroughly revised and updated, has received the French Voices Award for excellence in publication and translation, supported by a grant from the French-American Book Fund.