Description: Forbidden Desire is a pioneering study of the history of male-male sex in the whole of Early Modern Europe, including the European colonies and the Ottoman world.
Review Quotes: "The book is fantastic. Because of its broad temporal and geographical scope, it is definitely worth reading." -- Wolfgang Burgdorf, H-Soz-Kult
"Noel Malcom's work Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe, Male-Male Sexual Relations, 1400-1750 provides a well-argumented and researched introspective into same-sex relations of the early modern period. ...Malcom demonstrates meticulous attention to detail, as evidenced by a 45-page bibliography and archival material from all the linguistic regions examined in the book. This effort can only be shown respect." -- David Kronawitter, Südost-Forschungen"So vast and learned a book deserves to change its field. The patterns it identifies will become a common heuristic for studies of sexuality in early modernity ... Just as important, the book restores actual sex to its central position in a field which can lose itself dilating on the act's symbolic value as a marker of a vague, if politically agreeable, 'otherness'." -- James Butler, London Review of Books"Building on several decades of scholarship on sexualities in history, the volume...offers a compelling, accessible, and incisive study of male-male eroticism during the early modern period. It is a marvelous and momentous achievement." -- Helmut Puff, Journal of Modern History