OUT OF THE PAST is the first book of its kind to encompass the history of homosexuality from 1869 to the present, drawing on the experience of ordinary men and women as well as luminaries such as Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, James Baldwin, Alan Turing and Martina Navratilova. It covers gay and lesbian life in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Castro's Cuba and modern Japan, and chronicles the recent developments in gay politics (including the opposition to Clause 28 in the UK) to Clinton's position on gays in the military.