Until the 1970s the history of sexuality was a marginalized practice. Today it is a flourishing field, increasingly integrated into the mainstream and producing innovative insights into the ways in which societies shape and are shaped by sexual values, norms, identities and desires. In this book, Jeffrey Weeks, one of the leading international scholars in the subject, sets out clearly and concisely how sexual history has developed, and its implications for our understanding of the ways we live today. The emergence of a new wave of feminism and lesbian and gay activism in the 1970s transformed the subject, heavily influenced by new trends in social and cultural history, radical sociological insights and the impact of Michel Foucault’s work. The result was an increasing emphasis on the historical shaping of sexuality, and on the existence of many different sexual meanings and cultures on a global scale. With chapters on, amongst others, lesbian, gay and queer history, feminist sexual history, the mainstreaming of sexual history, and the globalization of sexual history, What is Sexual History? is an indispensable guide to these developments.

Jeffrey Weeks has established an international reputation as one of the most original and influential writers on the social history of sexuality.

The second edition of American Sexual Histories features an updated collection of sixteen articles and their corresponding primary sources that investigate issues related to human sexuality in America from the colonial era to the present day. Fully updated with ten new chapters, featuring recently published essays by prominent scholars in the field Provides readers with the source documents that historians have analyzed in their articles Allows readers to see how historians craft arguments based on available sources Encourages readers to evaluate historical documents, test the interpretations of historians, and draw their own conclusions

Sexuality is often understood to be uniquely private and intimate--something that can and should be protected from capitalism's influence. This book argues, in contrast, that the histories of capitalism and sexuality are closely intertwined. Integral to this story has been the illusion that economic and sexual practices are tied to fundamentally different realms. Focusing on the history of sex work in Britain, the book shows that capitalism has long needed theconstruction of artificial boundaries around sex and work in order to extract profit from sexual labor, both paid and unpaid.

The Sexual History of the Global South explores the gap between sexuality studies and post-colonial cultural critique. Featuring twelve case studies, based on original historical and ethnographic research from countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the book examines the sexual investments underlying the colonial project and the construction of modern nation-states. Covering issues of heteronormativity, post-colonial amnesia regarding non-normative sexualities, women's sexual agency, the policing of the boundaries between the public and the private realm, sexual citizenship, the connections between LGBTQ activism and processes of state formation, and the emergence of sexuality studies in the global South, this collection is of great geographical, historical, and topical significance.

Why we are so fascinated with sex and sexuality—from the preeminent philosopher of the 20th century. Michel Foucault offers an iconoclastic exploration of why we feel compelled to continually analyze and discuss sex, and of the social and mental mechanisms of power that cause us to direct the questions of what we are to what our sexuality is.

This book examines sexuality in the past, and explores how it helps explain sexuality in the present. The subject of sexuality is often a controversial one, and exploring it through a world history perspective emphasizes the extent to which societies, including our own, are still reacting to historical change through contemporary sexual behaviors, values, and debates. This new edition examines these issues on a global scale, with attention to anthropological insights on sexuality and their relationship to history, the dynamics between sexuality and imperialism, sexuality in industrial society, and trends and conflicts surrounding views of sex and sexuality in the contemporary world.