Richard Davenport-Hines Did Not Like David Halperin's Book

As part of our periodic series of scathing book reviews, from the TLS:

The tragedy of queer studies is that a subject of exceptional importance to  humanity is left in the clutches of show-offs who reduce it to self-centred  banality. Sexuality and gender are at the heart of understanding human  motivation. Treated with intelligence and authorial modesty, the innate  differences, indoctrinated codes and enforced disciplines of masculinity and  femininity – to say nothing of the sumptuous diversity of sexual  inclinations and expressions – should be central to historical  understanding. These inspiriting topics underlie many kinds of conduct:  aggression, loyalty, fear, altruism, envy, intuition, hatred, creativity.  Instead, the subject is dominated by inhumane pedants who pride themselves  on meretricious mental perversity and teach their pupils to use words such  as virtuous, self-respecting and dignified as pejorative epithets.