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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 April 2013
What can we expect from Dagmar Herzog's book on Sexuality in Europe: A Twentieth-Century History, published in a series on ‘new approaches to European history’? First, the series title suggests new approaches to this booming historical subdiscipline. There are plenty of burning questions about the history of sexuality waiting to be answered: the specificity of European sexuality or, perhaps better, sexualities, during the twentieth century, in comparison to the US, in a global context, and even the differences between the twentieth century and earlier periods. On our wish list we also have a comparative view of regional and national sexual cultures during the ‘century of sex’. A range of studies has been published on the history of sexuality in Europe during the last two decades, which could be used for reference and as templates. According to the mission statement of the Cambridge book series Herzog has to write about all these complex questions at the level of undergraduates. Therefore the bar is set really high for a historian of sexuality. To get straight to the point, Herzog has managed most of these requirements well over most passages of her book. It presents a successful combination of general introduction and historical explanation richly illustrated with numerous examples and historical images. The volume therefore offers an easy entrance into this up till now fairly confusing topic. But, as will be shown, she gives only a rather one-sided insight into the state of the art of recent historical research on European sexuality in the twentieth century.
1 e.g. Hekma, Gert, ed., A Cultural History of Sexuality in the Modern Age (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2010)Google Scholar; Eder, Franz X., Hall, Lesley and Hekma, Gert, eds, Sexual Cultures in Europe: Vol. I: National Histories; Vol. II: Themes in Sexuality (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press and St. Martin's Press, 1999)Google Scholar; McLaren, Angus, Twentieth-Century Sexuality: A History (Oxford and Malden: Blackwell, 1999)Google Scholar; also on different periods: e.g. Cocks, Harry G. and Houlbrook, Matt, eds, Palgrave Advances in the Modern History of Sexuality (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Timm, Annette F. and Sanborn, Joshua A., Gender, Sex and the Shaping of Modern Europe: A History from the French Revolution to the Present Day (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2007)Google Scholar; Crawford, Katherine, European Sexualities, 1400–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)Google Scholar; Karras, Ruth M., Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing unto Others (New York: Routledge, 2005)Google Scholar; Clark, Anna, Desire: A History of European Sexuality (New York and London: Routledge, 2008)Google Scholar; the list of publications on different countries and subtopics of the history of sexuality is nearly endless – see in my Bibliography of the History of Western Sexuality: http://wirtges.univie.ac.at/Sexbibl/ (last visited 15 Jan. 2013).
2 e.g. Brickell, Chris, ‘A Symbolic Interactionist History of Sexuality?’, Rethinking History, 10, 1 (2006), 415–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Carter, Julian, ‘Theory, Methods, Praxis: The History of Sexuality and the Question of Evidence’, Journal of the History of Sexuality, 14, 1–2 (2005), 1–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Halperin, David M., How to Do the History of Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).Google Scholar
3 e.g. Rebreyend, Anne-Claire, Intimités amoureuses: France, 1920–1975 (Toulouse: Presses universitaires du Mirail, 2008)Google Scholar; Sohn, Anne-Marie, Du premier baiser à l'alcôve: La sexualité des français au quotidien, 1850–1950 (Paris: Aubier, 1996)Google Scholar; Hall, Lesley, Hidden Anxieties: Male Sexuality, 1900–1950 (Cambridge: Polity, 1991)Google Scholar; Sydow, Kirsten von, Psychosexuelle Entwicklung im Lebenslauf: Eine biographische Studie bei Frauen der Geburtsjahrgänge 1895 bis 1936 (Regensburg: Roderer, 1991).Google Scholar
4 Dinzelbacher, Peter, ‘Gruppensex im Untergrund: Chaotische Ketzer und kirchliche Keuschheit im Mittelalter’, in Classen, Albrecht, ed., Sexuality in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: New Approaches to a Fundamental Cultural-Historical and Literary-Anthropological Theme (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2008), 405–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5 Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E., Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World: Regulating Desire, Reforming Practice (London and New York: Routledge, 2000)Google Scholar, 67 ff.; Burghartz, Susanna, Zeiten der Reinheit, Orte des Unzucht: Ehe und Sexualität in Basel während der Frühen Neuzeit (Paderborn: F. Schöningh, 1999)Google Scholar, 107ff.
6 For a longer perspective see Laqueur, Thomas W., Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation (New York: Zone Books, 2004).Google Scholar
7 Aldrich, Robert, ed., Gay Life and Culture: A World History (London and New York: Thames and Hudson, 2006)Google Scholar; some articles in Peakman, Julie, ed., A Cultural History of Sexuality, 6 vols (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2010).Google Scholar
8 e.g. for German-speaking countries: Eder, Franz X., Kultur der Begierde: Eine Geschichte der Sexualität, 2nd edn (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2nd ed., 2009)Google Scholar, 211ff.; Steinbacher, Sybille, Wie der Sex nach Deutschland kam: Der Kampf um Sittlichkeit und Anstand in der frühen Bundesrepublik (Munich: Siedler, 2011).Google Scholar
