Living in Arcadia

"This book is by an English historian and it is an important story about the prologue to sexual liberation in France. It has to do with a small and elite homosexual social club called Arcadie. Foucault was invited to speak there in the 1970s and generously donated his fee to charity. This is a very well-written book which is wonderfully researched. The protagonist, who is now in his late 80s, is a man called André Baudry who founded Arcadie in 1954 and it’s really a significant achievement despite countless efforts on the part of the very homophobic and over-anxious French government to suppress any manifestation of gay cultural autonomy. Baudry persisted for over 20 years to keep this small entity afloat. The irony and the tragedy, one could say, is that despite its success it was outstripped by the more assertive gay movement that came later. Having said that, you could argue Arcadie paves the way for that to happen through its pioneering efforts to educate the European public about homosexuality in an era of renewed repression."