In Queer City Peter Ackroyd looks at London in a whole new way – through
the story of its gay population. Ackroyd takes us right into the hidden
history of the city and its endless loop of permissiveness and censure,
from the pleasure-seeking Romans to the frenzy of executions for sodomy in
the early nineteenth century. The Second World War turned the roles of the
sexes upside down, and the seventies brought Gay Liberation and disco
music, but then the horror of Aids arrived and the wheel of queer fortune
turned yet again. Today we live in an era of increasing openness and
tolerance and queer London has become part of the new norm. Ackroyd tells
the story of how it got there, celebrating its diversity, thrills and
energy on the one hand, but reminding us of its very real terrors, dangers
and risks on the other.