A review by catheriner23
Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day by Peter Ackroyd

2.0

While I learned a few things I didn't know, there are lots of ways this book could have been better. Firstly, the book moves chronologically(ish). While this gives you a reasonable historical grounding, and might be useful if you're less familiar with British history, it gives you no geographical sense of London as a queer space whatsoever. I would love to have seen this divided instead by geographical location, or at the very least with some maps, pointing out how spaces link through time. While this book talks about 'queer' London, what it really means (surprise, surprise) is 'the London of men who have sex with men'. It talks very sparingly about women, trans and gender nonconforming people. This mostly occurs in the final chapter, which gives it a feeling of 'gay men have existed for centuries, but in the mid-20th Century, women and trans people were invented!'. There are some occasional earlier mentions, but they are few and far between. On the whole, the book feels bitty and disconnected and where themes could have been drawn out, or links made by area, these have been disregarded in favour of a fragmented chronological retelling.