Living in Arcadia: Homosexuality, Politics, and Morality in France from the Liberation to AIDS »

Julian Jackson is professor of modern French history at Queen Mary, University of London. He is the author of many books, including France: The Dark Years, 1940–1944; The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion, 1940; and De Gaulle.

In Paris in 1954, a young man named André Baudry founded Arcadie, an organization for “homophiles” that would become the largest of its kind that has ever existed in France, lasting nearly thirty years. In addition to acting as the only public voice for French gays prior to the explosion of radicalism of 1968, Arcadie—with its club and review—was a social and intellectual hub, attracting support from individuals as diverse as Jean Cocteau and Michel Foucault and offering support and solidarity to thousands of isolated individuals. Yet despite its huge importance, Arcadie has largely disappeared from the historical record.

The main cause of this neglect, Julian Jackson explains in Living in Arcadia, is that during the post-Stonewall era of queer activism, Baudry’s organization fell into disfavor, dismissed as conservative, conformist, and closeted. Through extensive archival research and numerous interviews with the reclusive Baudry, Jackson challenges this reductive view, uncovering Arcadie’s pioneering efforts to educate the European public about homosexuality in an era of renewed repression. In the course of relating this absorbing history, Jackson offers a startlingly original account of the history of homosexuality in modern France.

1 Homosexuality in France from the Revolution to Vichy 20

2 The Shadow of the Occupation, 1942-1955 37

3 Beginnings, 1954-1956 58

4 Survival, 1956-1968 87

5 The Vision of Arcadie: Homosexuality and Ethics 111

6 Living in Arcadie 134

7 The Deluge, 1968-1972 172

8 The Arcadie Years, 1973-1978 195

9 The End, 1979-1982 226

Conclusion 242

Notes 255

Bibliography 295

Index 309