History of Empire

Licentious Worlds

Research

Through my travels over the years, I have invaded libraries in various countries looking for information, including here in Suva, Fiji. 
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Travel

My work has taken me all over Europe, the South Seas, India, Australia, New Zealand, North Africa, China through temples, churches, mosques and museums.
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Gender

So often in the past, historians have missed out women and marginalised men, including homosexuals, gays, transpeople, altogether. It was my aim to make history more inclusive.
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Licentious Worlds (Reaktion, 2019) was a culmination of research over about 20 years. In the book, I examine sexual attitudes and behaviour over 500 years of empire-building around the world. In a graphic and sometimes unsettling account, it examines colonization and the imperial experience putting women back in the picture. I consider their role in the building of empires, but also how marginalized men and women were almost invariably exploited.

Women acted as negotiators, brothel-keepers, traders and peacekeepers, but they were also oppressed, forced into marriages and raped. The book describes daily life in Turkish harems, Mughal zenanas and Japanese geisha houses, as well as in royal palaces, private households and on board ships. 

The stories are drawn from many sources – from captains’ logs, missionary reports and cannibals’ memoirs to travellers’ letters, traders’ accounts and reports on prostitution. From debauched clerics and hog-sodomizing Pilgrims to sexually fluid cannibals and homosexual samurai, Licentious Worlds takes history where it has never been before.
The rapes and massacres undertaken by the Spanish invaders in Mexico was to establish a pattern which would continue over 500 years.
Don Marina was given to Don Cortes as booty. Yet she acted as negotiator and translator and saved many of her people's lives despite being called a traitor by them.

My Philosophy

Inclusivity

We can never truly understand our history unless we include everybody. All sexes, genders, religions, races and age groups tell us about who we are as a people.
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Human Rights

I have been fighting against inequalities for as long as I can remember. I was on the first London Gay Pride, at Greenham Common against Cruise Missiles and just missed the Poll Tax Riots in Thatcher's Day.
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Kindness

Through others people's kindness, I have been introduced to so many people and been brought into contact with pieces of history I might never have found. I have also learn to love my feral cats on Leros despite being a dog person.
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