Cross Currents and Community Networks: The History of the Indian Ocean World Book

Had to review as part of grad school project. What I wrote:

This book is an exhaustive look at homosexual experiences of colonial authorities while abroad, almost entirely from the perspective of the European conquerers. After examining how homosexual and/or bisexual men in Europe sought out the "East" as a refuge from heterosexual norms, Aldrich focuses on short biographies of each case of documented same-sex experimentation, usually from the personal diaries, notes, or fiction of the men who went abroad and sought (but did not always find) love with other men. He discusses how racial stereotypes played into sexual attraction and vice-versa, including examples of eroticized art produced by Europeans based on travels to the East. Only a section of the book focuses exclusively on India, but it has a good deal of material on E.M. Forster's relationships, the most significant of which was with an Egyptian and of whom partial letters exist, and the third and final one with a series of servants in India and how Forster's homosexual relationships were viewed by the maharajah who reigned in that area and facilitated the meetings. We can get a brief glimpse into the native Indian perspectives, though through a European authorial lens. This book is worth reading for the brief life sketches and information about fiction and published journals to be further explored. In that sense it is like an encyclopedia.