Thomas W. Laqueur, winner of the Mellon Foundation's 2007 Distinguished Achievement Award, is Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley.
A compendious and witty analysis of the subject. Jenny Diski Los Angeles Times Book Review A superb new volume... it's a helluva ride. Emma Tom Weekend Australian ... [A] long, thoughtful meditation on privacy, solitude, the imagination and what Mr. Laqueur calls 'the morally autonomous, modern' self. E. Eakin New York Times Website As a work of scholarly research... Professor Laqueur's hefty tome is without equal. Alexander Waugh Sunday Telegraph (UK) ... courageous... the celebration of the imagination has to include a place for solitary sex. Stephen Greenblatt New York Review of Books Deeply learned... Robert A. Nye , PhD JAMA Enlightening. Patty Lamberti Playboy His writing is free from embarrassment and needless jargon.... Publishers Weekly [ Solitary Sex ] will, it almost goes without saying, become the standard work on the subject. James Delingpole The Spectator Laqueur argues entertainingly that 'onanism' went on to shape the way that we experience ourselves as modern, autonomous individuals. Heather Findlay Girlfriends Laqueur is an impeccable historian of ideas... he writes in an elegant, almost mesmerizing prose.... Davenport-Hines TLS Laqueur is persuasive. An engaging writer. Briefly Noted The New Yorker Laqueur tackles with aplomb what has been called the last taboo. Kirkus Reviews Laqueur's penetrating analysis will fascinate social historians and the intellectual public. Recommended. Martha Cornog Library Journal ... the best sort of contemporary historical scholarship, combining historical detective work and detailed explication with a long view. Jeffrey Weeks Times Higher Education Supplement This is no cute 'n' frothy pop-cultural round-up: it's a very scholarly work.... T. Glyde Time Out