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Bezig met laden... Against the Law (1955)door Peter Wildeblood
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Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. Peter Wildeblood was a successful journalist who was imprisoned in the 1950s for homosexual offences in a case that highlighted the ruthlessness of the police in trying to secure convictions, and at least partly contributed to the turn in the public opinion on homosexual acts between consenting adults in private. There was a recent TV adaptation of the case which, as I discovered now, differed somewhat from Wildeblood's account here. Very interesting. geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
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In March 1954 Peter Wildeblood, a London journalist, was one of five men charged with homosexual acts in the notorious Montagu Case, as it came to be known. Wildeblood was sentenced to eighteen months for homosexual offences, along with Lord Montagu and Major Michael Pitt-Rivers. The other two men were set free after turning Queen's Evidence. In this book, first published in 1955, Peter Wildeblood tells the story of his childhood and schooldays, his war service and university days, his life as a journalist, his arrest, trial and imprisonment, and finally his return to freedom. In its honesty and restraint it is eloquent testimony to the inhumanity of the treatment of homosexuals in Britain only a generation ago. Probably the first book on homosexuality to reach a mass audience in Britain, Against the Law had a direct influence on the Wolfenden Committee, whose Report in 1957 recommended that homosexual acts between consenting adults in private be legalised, proposals which we re finally passed into law in 1967. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)305.389644092Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Groups of people People by gender or sex Specific groups of menLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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Definitely essential reading for anyone interested in the life of gay men in early fifties London and the events that led up to the Wolfenden Report; also pretty useful for what it tells about prison life at that time. But it shouldn't be taken in isolation, because of the way it distorts the facts in Wildeblood's favour. Some of Wildeblood's understanding of what was going on also doesn't seem to be supported by other evidence, in particular the idea that the Montagu prosecution was part of a witch-hunt designed to appease the Americans after the defection of Burgess and Maclean. See for instance Patrick Higgins, Heterosexual dictatorship for a fierce critique of Wildeblood's account. Higgins dismisses the idea of the witch-hunt completely, arguing that it had more to do with a shift in the way the press reported prosecutions for sexual offences. ( )