Reviews

I took the argument to heart. For this reason, I will write off the violence and suicide contagion (counselors on hand for the next round be damned), the aged roofs of schools threatening collapse, and whatever storm now gathers likely to afflict children in my community. Nor will I affirm it a "moral obligation" or a "good," despite that many would consider it incumbent upon every generation to provide for the wellbeing of the next while its members are yet children. The human race would all but perish if everyone abided the argument and refused to allow it a good to furnish children with the means of a better future. Children would starve if no one thought about the requirement of feeding them somehow in the nonpresent to be space we call the Future. This is insanely intelligent in point of theoretical play with abstract notions and equally idiotic in point of practical reality.
Let children suffer all impending strife,
refuse nourishment for their future life!
Though schools and programs would be sure to save
untold poor children from an early grave,
Pay it no mind if kids might starve to death,
fall through the cracks, make college or make meth. 

This book may seem unpalatable to many, but it is perhaps only because they do not want to swallow Edelman's diagnosis of social reality. His is the most coherent and thorough development of the theory of queer negativity that has been circulating for at least three decades. Significant not only for its contribution to queer theory, but also for the methodological questions it addresses in relation to critical theory more generally, this book is one that should be read and read again.  

An exciting book--daring, provocative, and clever, but completely wrongheaded. Should definitely be read alongside Tim Dean's critique of it: http://books.google.com/books?id=HDTWN9QStswC&dq=Tim+Dean,++%22A+time+for+the+humanities%22&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=uUULYTX58N&sig=hn-YSBh3wjTLkxN-YP_xEoh7vOY&hl=en&ei=wseBSqzRM5PqsQPB96SGCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=&f=true