The Queer Thing About Sin

SHORTLISTED FOR FOYLES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025
A gripping new journey through ancient history, uncovering the origins of homophobia and the untold stories of those who dared to love.

'BOLD AND BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN' Tom Holland
'MY GOD, THIS BOOK IS NEEDED. HISTORY HAS NEVER SEEMED MORE ALIVE.' Russell T Davies

A gripping new journey through ancient history, uncovering the origins of homophobia and the untold stories of those who dared to love.

In the early days of ancient Greece, queer love was celebrated. The most famous warrior in antiquity loved another man, the poet whose lyrics were memorised by philosophers and kings sang of her desire for women. Men could swear oaths of undying love and live out the rest of their lives together in peace. What fragments survive of this ancient world all tell us one thing: it was not a sin to be queer.

In this extraordinary book, Harry Tanner sets out on a journey to discover the origins of homophobia in the West. He follows the traces of this sinister idea as it swept across the ancient Mediterranean. Wherever he discovers the roots of homophobia taking hold, Tanner finds a confluence of crises mirrored across the centuries. Inequality, fear and an obsession with self-control – this is how societies turn on their queer citizens, time and time again, since the dawn of history.

This is a powerful story that draws on the rich world of the ancients to reveal how homophobia infected Western religion and ideology - the consequences of which we are still living with today - and to that end how we can move forward and resist homophobia in the future.

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