Reviews
Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy. Barbara Ehrenreich by Barbara Ehrenreich
simlish's review against another edition
4.0
Interesting arguments. Not sure I'm fully convinced, but definitely has given me a lot to think about.
gavmor's review against another edition
5.0
Ehrenreich leads the reader through ecstatic rituals' persistent effervescence despite several millennia's authoritarian campaigns against collective joy.
As a white American, I have always felt an important part of myself locked down, and tied up. Ehrenreich identifies it as a practice of social movement that's been stripped from me over long generations of Orwellian memory-holes.
As a white American, I have always felt an important part of myself locked down, and tied up. Ehrenreich identifies it as a practice of social movement that's been stripped from me over long generations of Orwellian memory-holes.
grauspitz's review against another edition
3.0
An interesting topic, but I felt that the book was limited by its narrow definition of collective joy and a Western-centric focus. I expected more glimpses of different expressions of collective joy across cultures and discussions about their shared commonalities and potential differences.
Instead, this book is more about how group dancing and festivals have diminished in importance in the West over the centuries, and the impact that it's had on society more broadly. Which, while not a bad topic in itself, is not something that the author really makes clear at the beginning or even by the very title of the book.
Instead, this book is more about how group dancing and festivals have diminished in importance in the West over the centuries, and the impact that it's had on society more broadly. Which, while not a bad topic in itself, is not something that the author really makes clear at the beginning or even by the very title of the book.
siria's review against another edition
3.0
Four out of five stars for the idea, two out of five stars for execution. Ehrenreich's introduction to Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy points out a quizzical disconnect in modern Western culture. We put an awful lot of time and effort into studying depression, malaise, the things that make us happy and the things that isolate us, but very little effort into studying the things that make us happy or which bring us together. Ehrenreich traces the history of expressions of communal joy and ecstatic communion—and the suppression of those celebrations—from prehistoric times through to the present day. In general, I think she makes some good points here. Why is it that modern Westerners can conceive so easily of strong bonds between individuals but less so between groups? What have we lost in the search for individual freedom? There's definitely fodder for thought and for discussion in the ideas Ehrenreich raises.
However, I cannot recommend the methodology which Ehrenreich uses here. She admits at the outset that there is a bias in the sources towards the history of the West, yet makes little attempt to correct that tendency in her own writing. Moreover, what little discussion she has of non-Western cultures largely comes from Western sources. The subtitle of this book should really be A History of Collective Joy in the West.
Ehrenreich may also have read broadly in order to read this book, but she does not seem to have read deeply, and much of the secondary scholarship on which she draws is shockingly dated, dating from the 50s and 60s. E.R. Dodds' work is foundational for a lot of recent scholarship, but it's also been superseded in many, many ways—the man died in the 70s! Why does she reference his work and not Peter Brown's? (Surely a more influential scholar in the field of late antique religion, whose work would, I think, be illuminating on this topic, even if he never directly addresses it!)
I suspect, based on the chapters on medieval Europe (the area with which I'm most familiar) that this partly proceeds from a selective choice of/reading of the sources, and partly from the fact that she seems not to have read much secondary material not directly relevant to the topic. I think that a knowledge of Caroline Walker Bynum's work on food and the body in the Middle Ages, for instance, would have changed her characterisation of the medieval Mass and how laypeople participated in it. Similarly, greater familiarity with scholarly terminology on Ehrenreich's part would have strengthened her work—when historians or anthropologists refer to things as "liminal", that does not mean, as she seems to think, that they are dismissing something as marginal or unimportant, but rather that it gains in power or possibility because it straddles the margins of more than one sphere. It's not so easily categorised.
(I listened to the audiobook version of this. I greatly enjoyed the reader's style and verve, but I really wish that she'd taken the time to clarify the pronunciation of non-English words before the recording. The French in particular made me wince.)
However, I cannot recommend the methodology which Ehrenreich uses here. She admits at the outset that there is a bias in the sources towards the history of the West, yet makes little attempt to correct that tendency in her own writing. Moreover, what little discussion she has of non-Western cultures largely comes from Western sources. The subtitle of this book should really be A History of Collective Joy in the West.
Ehrenreich may also have read broadly in order to read this book, but she does not seem to have read deeply, and much of the secondary scholarship on which she draws is shockingly dated, dating from the 50s and 60s. E.R. Dodds' work is foundational for a lot of recent scholarship, but it's also been superseded in many, many ways—the man died in the 70s! Why does she reference his work and not Peter Brown's? (Surely a more influential scholar in the field of late antique religion, whose work would, I think, be illuminating on this topic, even if he never directly addresses it!)
I suspect, based on the chapters on medieval Europe (the area with which I'm most familiar) that this partly proceeds from a selective choice of/reading of the sources, and partly from the fact that she seems not to have read much secondary material not directly relevant to the topic. I think that a knowledge of Caroline Walker Bynum's work on food and the body in the Middle Ages, for instance, would have changed her characterisation of the medieval Mass and how laypeople participated in it. Similarly, greater familiarity with scholarly terminology on Ehrenreich's part would have strengthened her work—when historians or anthropologists refer to things as "liminal", that does not mean, as she seems to think, that they are dismissing something as marginal or unimportant, but rather that it gains in power or possibility because it straddles the margins of more than one sphere. It's not so easily categorised.
(I listened to the audiobook version of this. I greatly enjoyed the reader's style and verve, but I really wish that she'd taken the time to clarify the pronunciation of non-English words before the recording. The French in particular made me wince.)
nrhilmer's review against another edition
challenging
informative
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide, Colonisation, Mental illness, Drug use, and Slavery
kmg365's review against another edition
3.0
Three and a half stars.
This is not a topic about which I would have deliberately sought out information, but Ehrenreich is one of those authors who can lead me willingly into uncharted waters.
The joy of which the subtitle speaks is the ecstatic variety, most familiar to modern Western readers as a relic of a bygone age, in which there might be speaking in tongues, dancing to the point of exhaustion, and other expressions in which the individual seems to lose him or herself to some greater collective force of the group.
Her examination begins in ancient Greece, moves to ancient Rome, then becomes closely tied to the history of Christianity, which, until around the 12th or 13th century, appears to have been a danced religion, much like the other religions of the day. The eventual exclusion of dancing from religious ritual was a gradual process, which involved not only a clergy eager to maintain tight control of their followers, but surprisingly (at least to me), the invention of capitalism and Calvinism, both of which required the poorer classes to be a sober, hard-working, reliable source of labor who would be meekly grateful for whatever meager wages were provided to them.
Once the church stamped out public celebrations related to worship, the urge to gather and have fun in large groups found other means of expression-- first in the carnivals of the Middle Ages, and later in nationalist gatherings (favored by both Hitler and Mussolini), rock concerts, and sporting events.
While primarily a book of history, the book also touches on psychology, sociology, and the politics of race.
This is not a topic about which I would have deliberately sought out information, but Ehrenreich is one of those authors who can lead me willingly into uncharted waters.
The joy of which the subtitle speaks is the ecstatic variety, most familiar to modern Western readers as a relic of a bygone age, in which there might be speaking in tongues, dancing to the point of exhaustion, and other expressions in which the individual seems to lose him or herself to some greater collective force of the group.
Her examination begins in ancient Greece, moves to ancient Rome, then becomes closely tied to the history of Christianity, which, until around the 12th or 13th century, appears to have been a danced religion, much like the other religions of the day. The eventual exclusion of dancing from religious ritual was a gradual process, which involved not only a clergy eager to maintain tight control of their followers, but surprisingly (at least to me), the invention of capitalism and Calvinism, both of which required the poorer classes to be a sober, hard-working, reliable source of labor who would be meekly grateful for whatever meager wages were provided to them.
Once the church stamped out public celebrations related to worship, the urge to gather and have fun in large groups found other means of expression-- first in the carnivals of the Middle Ages, and later in nationalist gatherings (favored by both Hitler and Mussolini), rock concerts, and sporting events.
While primarily a book of history, the book also touches on psychology, sociology, and the politics of race.