Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy [Paperback]

Barbara Ehrenreich (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 26, 2007

"Fascinating . . . An admirably lucid, level-headed history of outbreaks of joy from Dionysus to the Grateful Dead."--Terry Eagleton, The Nation

 

Widely praised as "impressive" (The Washington Post Book World), "ambitious" (The Wall Street Journal), and "alluring" (The Los Angeles Times), Dancing in the Streets explores a human impulse that has been so effectively suppressed that we lack even a term for it: the desire for collective joy, historically expressed in revels of feasting, costuming, and dancing.
 
Drawing on a wealth of history and anthropology, Barbara Ehrenreich uncovers the origins of communal celebration in human biology and culture. From the earliest orgiastic Mesopotamian rites to the medieval practice of Christianity as a "danced religion" and the transgressive freedoms of carnival, she demonstrates that mass festivities have long been central to the Western tradition. In recent centuries, this festive tradition has been repressed, cruelly and often bloodily. But as Ehrenreich argues in this original, exhilarating, and ultimately optimistic book, the celebratory impulse is too deeply ingrained in human nature ever to be completely extinguished.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ehrenreich's social history of collective joy, ranging from pagan ritual to rock concerts, comes off as an extended, rambling lecture, taking in a varied array of subjects along the way. Taking the hint, Ward reads Ehrenreich's book with a touch of the lecturer's oratorical savvy, and some of that same figure's dry deliberation. Ehrenreich argues that communal ecstasy has been too often misunderstood as an excuse for booze-fueled sexual bacchanalias, ignoring its political and social components. Ward is neither overly joyous in her reading, owing too much to the nature of her material, nor overly serious, her voice tinged with the slightest hint of charmed pleasure at the prospect of declaiming on Ehrenreich's chosen subject. The unabridged audio is not overlong as audiobooks go, but there are moments where Ward's reading drags ever so slightly, pulled down by a sameness of approach that threatens to inspire the opposite of the ecstatic moments Ehrenreich's book describes. The solid quality of Ehrenreich's prose papers over the gaps and gives Ward's reading the pleasurable (if not quite monumentally joyous) sensation it possesses.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

About the Author

Barbara Ehrenreich is the bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed, Bait and Switch, Bright-sided, This Land Is Their Land, and Blood Rites, among others. A frequent contributor to Harper's and The Nation, she has also been a columnist at The New York Times and Time magazine. She is the winner of the L.A. Times Book Prize for Current Interest and ALA Notable Books for Nonfiction.

 

Ehrenreich was born in Butte, Montana, when it was still a bustling mining town. She studied physics at Reed College, and earned a Ph.D. in cell biology from Rockefeller University. Rather than going into laboratory work, she got involved in activism, and soon devoted herself to writing her innovative journalism. She lives and works in Florida.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks; 1st edition (December 26, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805057242
• ISBN-13: 978-0805057249
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #327,086 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #44 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Holidays

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good and Informative Read, July 8, 2008

By 

Cynthia Roses-Thema, Ph.D. (Arizona) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (Paperback)

Good research comes from good questions. Barbara Ehrenreich's book is the result of two excellent questions that she writes are prompted by a sense of loss: "if ecstatic rituals and festivities were once so widespread, why is so little left of them today? If the `techniques' of ecstasy represent an important part of the human cultural heritage, why have we forgotten them, if indeed we have?"
Going chronologically from the stone age cave drawings where the collective experience of dancing and feasting was felt so important as to record it, Ehrenreich sweeps through to present times, to what she calls an age of spectacle and sports. Along the way, Ehrenreich tells you about anthropologists who in the beginning neglected dance altogether and psychologists who are still too busy studying only the depressed individual to take any notice of those of us who experience joy. She takes a long hard look at Calvinism through the immensely troubled life of John Bunyan and tracks the dance mania in the 13-15th century Europe that ended in a crackdown on bodily movement from both Church and State in the 16th century. Ehrenreich cleverly posits this crackdown could very well be linked to the European Depression in the 17th century and she cites evidence in the novels, poetry, and autobiographies of the times. She finds only sporadic outbreaks of collective joy in present times, one such episode emanating from the sixties culture.
Coming to this book as a dancer and knowing the joy of dance I interpret Ehrenreich's work as demonstrating the struggle that exists in the physical body when you dance. In other words, to move or not to move. In reference to society, the ability to dance and feast and move the boundaries of gender, ethnicity, and social position versus the habit of sitting still for fear of losing both self-control and social positioning.
Ehrenreich's examples are interesting, her connections are insightful, and the book is easy to read. If humans for so many years devoted so much time and energy to the pursuit of collective joy what threatens us from pursuing this experience now? She does answer her questions. You'll have to read the book to find out what they are.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Social repression explained, August 25, 2008

By 

Ladybug (West Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (Paperback)

This book explains how and why our western European culture (among others) systematically represses our natural human inclination to cut loose and enjoy ourselves, and why it is so important for our emotional and political well-being that we continue to do so! Very thorough in explanations and examples. I now see acts of community celebration, music and dance to be highly important demonstrations of our personal freedom and political rights.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book, Well Researched, November 22, 2009

By 

Tim Warneka "Leadership Expert, Keynote Speak... (Cleveland, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dancing in the Streets (Audio CD)

I listened to the audio version of this book.

I found this book to be fascinating and stimulating. As a life-long Roman Catholic, I thought the earlier reviews that decry the author for her 'church bashing' and 'Stalin'-like approaches were rather unfair and unnecessarily ad hominem. The author clearly put a great deal of time and effort into this book (either that, or she has an amazing team of researchers working for her! ;-D). It was fascinating for me to listen as she wove disparate pieces of information into a beautiful tapestry about the history of collective ecstatic dance in the Western world. (These kinds of books are very difficult to write. If you haven't tried to write a book such as this, I would strongly invite you to do so ... you'll gain a new appreciation for authors such as Ehrenreich who make it look so easy.)

I picked this book up because I very appreciated the author's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America and Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream. I appreciate the author because she is focusing on issues that, in my opinion, should deeply concern today's Christians, such as the rich becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer.

As a mental health professional, I also found her discussion on depression and mental health issues to be very insightful.

The person who read the audio book did a wonderful job. I found her voice very easy to listen to. The only critique I would offer to the publisher is that I sometimes found it difficult to tell where a particular quote ended and where the text resumed (in several cases knowing where they quote ended made a significant different in understanding the text).

For people interested in historical Christianity, collective healing rituals, mental health, dance, martial arts, and other forms of physical movement, I would highly recommend this book.