Right you are. The underlying problem is that the audience for such works – what a lefty might identify as the petit bourgeois and a right-winger as the liberal elite – is addicted to superficially progressive but fundamentally reactionary explanations. They want to be praised for their outward tolerance of the marginalized, while having their resentments and fears cosied. The result is unsound writing about history, science and public policy, centered on cliches (the tragedy of gay life) and assumptions (historians and activists are wrong because of ideological blinders).
All this sort of work does is slap its hand on the table, buckle you in, and explain the little-known facts that prove things were worse back then than anyone realizes — thereby showing what a great job we’ve already done fixing it.
Whether this was such a book will remain an academic question, as it will be rewitten.
