I have no hesitation in recommending Roger Lancaster’s landmark work of popular ethnography The Struggle To Be Gay In Mexico, For Example (University of California Press, £25, 2024) which is the very best analysis I have encountered of gay men’s lives, and the class character of the society that shapes and constrains them. 

Over four decades he revisits Mexican cities which allows him not only to observe the complete trajectory of life stories but also the history within which they unfold; the economic and ideological forces that hold sway and within which the destiny of gay men floats like a marker buoy. He traces the history from the Mexican revolution onwards and the book is a useful roadmap of the path from socialism to neoliberalism. “Diversity,” he says, “is neoliberalism with a human face.” A gay identity emerges that most of the population simply can’t afford. 

A mixture of storytelling, ethnography, historical summary and razor-sharp class-conscious critique, this book stands out as a paradigm. You just wish someone would bring this kind of writerly panache, analysis and attention to the struggle to be gay in Scotland, for example.