The promise of exotic and sensuous experience has lured many a European man to go abroad as an explorer, businessman, soldier or bureaucrat, as Robert Aldrich demonstrates in Colonialism and Homosexuality (Routledge). He analyzes the lives and writings of such historical figures as E. M. Forster, André Gide and Lawrence of Arabia, who all had homosexual experiences during their travels, as well as Henry Morton Stanley (who found Dr. Livingstone), James Brooke (the Rajah of Sarawak), Cecil Rhodes and others who had close male friends whom they admired in sometimes sexualized language. Aldrich distinguishes between physical relationships and the atmosphere of male camaraderie and bonding (which often exists where women are excluded), but too often he conflates male friendship and homosexual desire without evidence. Much of the book is based on speculation and a self-serving interpretation of the emotionalized language of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Aldrich does make the important point, though, that the outlook of homosexual and homosocial administrators had a direct impact on colonial policy, and Colonialism and Homosexuality has a broad scope and many fascinating anecdotes despite its skewed interpretations of men of Empire.