A Queer Revolutionary War Hero Gets His Glorious Due
Pride Month Special
Nick Havey, Washington Independent Review of Books
Winston Churchill is credited with the classic quote, “History is written by the victors.” A notorious racist and proponent of empire, Churchill is nonetheless remembered as a brilliant war-time hero and a cunning tactician. Why? Because the Allies prevailed in World War II. History has been kind to Churchill in large part because, as he said, it was written by the victors.
It also tends to be written from a white, heterosexual, cisgender perspective, at least until now. Washington’s Gay General, a graphic novel chronicling the real-life exploits of queer Revolutionary War figure Friedrich von Steuben, is an open criticism and repudiation of this approach to capturing the historical record—and an incredibly successful one.