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

Charles W. Riendeau: We know without being told that good food, good music and permission to dance gives us joy. Sometimes in our lives we have experienced personal ecstasy. A few of us have participated in group events that have briefly given us something more. Something beyond the personal ecstasy of sex, drugs, or the satisfactions of a momentary success. It felt like joy. But it was created because we were in a group. It seemed to be created spontaneously from the interactions of that group: A drumming circle, a rhythm in the back of a truck that just started up between the two or three people that were waiting out the lightning and a rainstorm. We were surprised. A kind of thrill ran through our nervous systems but we didn't really know why. Ms. Ehrenreich explains all in this book. That feeling is connected to every human being since the first nearly-naked tribe sat shivering around a campfire and for a bulwark against the fears of the night started to dance to a rhythm made by one person stamping their foot upon the dirt.
What was created in that moment was the very same feeling as we, alive now, recreated in the back of that truck.
This book is an excellent chronicle of how we had it,...

United States on Apr 21, 2023

Leslie: Really great book with interesting concepts for more joy in life.

Canada on Jan 24, 2019

Lorraine: Barbara Ehrenreich writes well, and provides highly relevant and interesting information. Would recommend.

Canada on Nov 20, 2018

Northern Belle: Read this book and you will find out. We, as a civilization, made a mistake and its not too late to fix it.
Everyone should read this book.

Canada on Sep 28, 2018

Joseph Sylvester Pampliega: Illuminating read especially in a generation plagued by rigid individualism, encouraging the practicality and meaning of a community in celebration. Highly recommended for everybody in search for answers why contemporary man is often either bored or anxious ans depressed.

Canada on May 12, 2018

Alphonse: A fine book on a much neglected subject,but I think the author is missing the point hugely by omitting any reference to dance culture and ecstasy in the 80's and 90's preferring to focus on the carnivalisation of what the Americans call "sport".Ok,I'm Scottish and she's American,but she was about in the late sixties....and can't see the similarities,hmmm.

United Kingdom on Nov 10, 2017

Daria Doering: I came across this title in an Audible search and thought – that sounds like a really fun book to listen to, and maybe I’ll get some ideas about “joy activities.” Well, it turned out to be kind of the opposite. It is a scholarly work that is mostly about how the church and upper classes have systematically worked to stamp out ecstatic celebrations throughout history. However it solved a much larger problem in my life.

I tend to get depressed, and in fact recently started a book and support group called Sad Is Okay, devoted to both acceptance of melancholia and overcoming depression. This book gave such an important clue as to why so many in our society are depressed. Ehrenreich documents how the “melancholia trend” that began in the late 17th century arose at the same time that the church started finally succeeding in stamping out danced religious practices. Such an important and fundamental insight as to the roots of depression!

It’s also funny because I do a lot of folk dancing and rowing, both activities in which groups of people move in unison with each other, and I always find those activities to be joyful and satisfying.

In fact numerous...

United States on Nov 03, 2017

Amazon Customer: It is a little dated, and at some points Ehrenreich goes beyond what her evidence demonstrates and speculates about causes and at those points - points of specialist knowledge - the text suffers.

United States on Nov 25, 2013

Dr. Lee D. Carlson: What is it about the human psyche that almost demands that one take off the social mask, shed inhibition, and engage in behavior requiring sizable kinetic energy, behavior of which is sometimes totally beyond the pale of acceptable standards of conduct? Is this behavior an intrinsic human need, or maladjustment that requires tuning or even rescuing by those cultures that do not stoop to the writhing and bodily contortions of the primitive, backward cultures that do? Is stillness, is the sterile boardroom composure that appears settled and refined, an acid test for rationality? Can one indeed be rational and still indulge periodically in the drunken-Mount-of-Ephesus-like ecstasy of the ancient Greeks? Is dance a sign of social decadence or proof of social health, and if the former why do so many people throughout history risk reprisal by authorities by joining their friends, neighbors, and strangers to "dance in the streets?"

This book provides an excellent context to begin to answer these questions. Although the book is short, and frequently provides only anecdotal evidence for its assertions, both its statements and conclusions are plausible, and the author exhibits an...

United States on Sep 29, 2007