The greatest shows on earth : a history of the circus / Linda Simon.

London, UK : Reaktion Books, 2014.

1 online resource (298 pages) : illustrations (some color)

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Step right up! and buy a ticket to the Greatest Show on Earth - the Big Top, containing death-defying stunts, dancing bears, roaring tigers, and trumpeting elephants. The circus has always been home to the dazzling and the exotic, the improbable and the impossible--a place of myth and romance, of reinvention, rebirth, second acts, and new identities. Asking why we long to soar on flying trapezes, ride bareback on spangled horses, and parade through the streets in costumes of glitter and gold, this captivating book illuminates the history of the circus and the claim it has on the imaginations of artists, writers, and people around the world -- Source other than Library of Congress.

History of the circus

Print version: Simon, Linda. Greatest shows on earth : a history of the circus. London, UK : Reaktion Books, 2014

Books / Online

English

April 04, 2016

Includes bibliographical references and index.