Katherine Harvey (1)Critiques

The Fires of Lust is a really solid synthesis of recent scholarship on the history of sex and sexuality in medieval Europe, written with a beginner audience in mind. Katherine Harvey does a good job at dismantling modern misconceptions and stereotypes, and has a real eye for vivid anecdotes, such as using surnames—Simon Fukkebotere, William Smallfuk, and Roger Fuckbythenavele to name but a few—to show how the English verb 'to fuck' shifted in meaning from 'to strike or beat' to its modern meaning by the fifteenth century. It's definitely written with classroom use in mind, but I'd also recommend it for anyone who wants to know more about the subject.