Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Hetrosexuality
“Fascinating.”—Vanity Fair“[An] amusing, readable synthesis . . . Blank darts from one intriguing, thought-provoking point to another. . . . [And she] offers the provocative solution that soon we will move on from our present fixation on the binary to a more fluid understanding.”—Abigail Zuger,New York Times“Using  wit and wisdom, Blank substantiates her argument that love and passion are not  defined by biology.”—EDGEPublications“A lively, accessible synthesis of decades of scholarship on the history and sociology of sexuality.”—CHOICE “Wry, witty and thoroughly researched.”— Lavender Magazine“Blank has produced a challenging, clear, and interesting study of how Western views of what it means to be ‘straight’ have changed over the past two centuries and continue to change.”—Library Journal“Blank’s work reaches further and deeper into the history of heterosexuality…highly accessible.”—Lambda Lit“Straight…is accessible and engaging,  often witty and penetrating in its insights.”—New  York Journal of Books“Blank’s tenacious research and insightful arguments make clear how malleable the attitudes of the world we live in really are.”—Michelle Kehm,Bust“Blank writes with  great erudition and humor, so that, even a skeptical (or anxious) reader will be  hard-pressed not to find it enjoyable and thought provoking."—Haaretz“Hanne Blank has rendered a  meticulously researched romp through the history of ‘heterosexuality’—that pesky  orthodoxy still looming over Western culture like smog. Her sweeping synthesis  takes on everything from Freud to Larry Craig, expertly weaving this untold  history with insight and a refreshing dose of irreverence.”—Lisa M.  Diamond, author ofSexual Fluidity:  Understanding Women’s Love and  Desire“The author  uses wisdom and wit to substantiate her contention that love and passion are not  definable by biology.”—Kirkus“From its thorough but brisk explorations of sexual orientation’s intersections with sex, gender, and romance, this illuminating study examines our presuppositions and makes a powerful, provocative argument that heterosexuality—mazy, unscientific, and new—may be merely “a particular configuration of sex and power in a particular historical moment.”—Publishers Weekly“With impeccable research and detail, Hanne Blank  uncovers the fascinating, often hidden, history of heterosexuality. Straight is  a marvelous cultural history that is as entertaining as it is profoundly  enlightening and necessary for understanding the world in which we live.”—Michael Bronski, author ofA Queer History  of the United States“What would it  mean to dispense with our current categories of sexual identity? Writing with  grace and wit, Hanne Blank demonstrates that what sounds like a radical  proposition is also historically inevitable. This is a book that really shakes  up an assumption or two!”—Laura Kipnis,  author ofHow To Become a ScandalandAgainst  Love “Challenging  our culture’s deeply entrenched, stubborn assumption of heterosexuality,Straighthelps us to think newly  and critically. Starting from her own experience, Hanne Blank creatively  analyses the unexamined idea that heterosexuality is given, unchanging,  ahistorical.”—Jonathan Ned  Katz, author ofThe  Invention of Heterosexualityand co-director  OutHistory.orgFrom the Hardcover edition.