Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy
About this audiobook
From bestselling social commentator and cultural historian Barbara Ehrenreich comes this fascinating exploration of one of humanity’s oldest traditions: the celebration of communal joy, historically expressed in ecstatic revels of feasting, costuming, and dancing. Ehrenreich uncovers the origins of communal celebration in human biology and culture, showing that such mass festivities have been indigenous to the West since the ancient Greeks. Though suppressed by elites who fear the undermining of social hierarchies, outbreaks of group revelry still persist, Ehrenreich shows, pointing to the 1960s rock-and-roll rebellion and the more recent “carnivalization” of sports.
Original, exhilarating, and deeply optimistic, Dancing in the Streets shows that we are innately social beings, impelled to share our joy and thereby envision a peaceable future.
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About the author
Barbara Ehrenreich (1941-2022) authored over a dozen books, including the New York Times bestsellers Nickel and Dimed, Bait and Switch, Living with a Wild God, and The Worst Years of Our Lives. An award-winning journalist, she frequently contributed to Harper’s, The Nation, the New York Times, and Time magazine. She was born in Butte, Montana, studied physics at Reed College, and earned a PhD 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.
Pam Ward has had many incarnations, including private detective, classical musician, television talk-show host, and actress, having performed in dinner theater, summer stock, and Off-Broadway, as well as in commercials, radio, and film. But she found her true calling reading books for the blind and physically handicapped for the Library of Congress Talking Books program, for which she received the prestigious Alexander Scourby Award from the American Foundation for the Blind. An AudioFile Earphones Award winner, her many audiobooks include Dancing in the Streets by Barbara Ehrenreich, Breaking Free by Lauraine Snelling, The Second Journey by Joan Anderson, and Lion in the White House by Aida D. Donald. She now records from her studio amidst the beauty of the Southern Oregon mountains.
