Dancing in the Streets

Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy by Barbara Ehrenreich, 320 pages

Ever since people started trying to rule over other people, there has been a crackdown on instances of collective joy. Festivals or dancing or carnivals, religious or spiritual or cultural, symbolic or just plain fun — they've all been targets of oppression from colonizers and rulers dating back as far as the written word can detail it. In Dancing in the Streets, Ehrenreich gives an overview of the ways in which collective ecstasy has been tamped down, and posits theories about why collective ecstasy keeps bubbling back up. It's a fascinating book, tying together culture, religion, music, sports, and more from Dionysis to Burning Man. I'd love to hear her thoughts on more recent events, as the book was published back in 2006.