Visions of Sodom
Religion, Homoerotic Desire, and the End of the World in England, c. 1550-1850
- Contents
- Review Quotes
Table of Contents

Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction1. The Roman Sodom
2. City of Destruction
3. The End of the World
4. Laws
5. Histories
6. Lust and Morality in the (Long) Eighteenth Century
7. The Discovery of Sodom, 1851
Conclusion: The End
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Bibliography
Index
Review Quotes
Times Higher Education
“This is a powerful and important book. As St. Paul insisted, sodomy was a crime not to be named and so homoerotic desire quickly became screened by hyperbolic accusations of all kinds of iniquity. In disentangling these complexities, Cocks demonstrates not only how the ‘story of Sodom’s destruction is central to the history of homoerotic desire,’ but how its various inflections have been shaped by religious, political and cultural contingencies.”
Helmut Puff, University of Michigan
“Visions of Sodom by H. G. Cocks redraws the map of a terrain many of us thought we knew well: the history of sodomy in early modern Europe. What emerges powerfully from this beautifully conceived and densely textured study on England is that theology, prophecy, and millenarianism, with their histories, continued to matter well throughout the period. A rare and superb achievement as well as a stunning read.”
Kenneth Borris, McGill University
“This lucid and fascinating study richly illuminates its subject. Cocks learnedly traces sodomy’s complex cultural roles and homoerotic applications from its ancient conceptual origins through the ensuing centuries into our present. He has superbly enhanced our knowledge of Western cultural, intellectual, and sexual history.”
For more information, or to order this book, please visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu
Google preview here
History: British and Irish History | History of Ideas
You may purchase this title at these fine bookstores. Outside the USA, see our international sales information.