In Dancing in the Streets Ehrenreich uncovers the origins of communal celebration in human biology and culture. She discovers that the same elements come up in every human culture throughout history: a love of masking, carnival, music-making and dance. Although sixteenth-century Europeans began to view mass festivities as foreign and 'savage', Ehrenreich shows that they were indigenous to the West, from the ancient Greek's worship of Dionysus to the medieval practices of Christianity as a 'danced religion'. Exhilarating in its scholarly range, humane, witty and impassioned, Dancing in the Streets will generate debate and soul-searching.
- ISBN10 1847080081
- ISBN13 9781847080080
- Publish Date 5 May 2008 (first published 1 January 2006)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Granta Books
- Format Paperback
- Pages 336
- Language English