Tomorrow's New York Times Book Review (available today) has a review of this book. It concludes that the evidence is skimpy at best and that the author had a gay agenda.
Richard Brookhiser, who wrote the review, is too wimpy, though. He's a Manhattan conservative writing for a very liberal publication, and doesn't want to offend anyone. Philip Nobile, who wrote this article, is much more upfront and devastating in his charges against Tripp.
Surrounding the history we learned in school, there's an awful lot of unsubstantiated rumor and speculation. The text books aren't always right, but it's so easy for people who have something to prove to swim or drown in those seas of unproven anecdotes and unverified conclusions. And that seems to be what Tripp has done. He's like the too hungry predator that seizes on every scrap or crumb of food and ends up in a trap which the careful animal escapes.
Ours is "Beavis and Butthead" culture, and plenty of people are almost permanently stupified until they hear something that sounds salacious that and pricks up their ears and rouses them a little out of their stupor. The gay lobby is going to push this book, but I doubt Tripp's work will stand up on its own. As Nobile shows, there are a lot of wholes and leaps in his hypothesis.