Worlds of the ring

Sabine Hanke is a Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Tuebingen.

• Introduction 1 Modernity and the circus 2 Training, risk and celebrity: wild animals and human stars 3 Half-human, half-animal: the lure of empire in the British circus 4 Germany’s native kin: the Wild West at the Sarrasani Circus 5 Juggling entertainment and control: wartime circus performances Conclusion Index

'A significant contribution to the historiography of interwar and wartime leisure. Despite the widespread popularity of the circus at the time, it remains an understudied aspect of popular culture, certainly in relation to scholarship focused on film, radio, and theater histories... The book offers much to cultural and political historians interested in nationalism and popular culture in early twentieth-century Britain and Germany and should be required reading for anyone wanting to know more about intersections of popular entertainment, domestic politics, and cultural diplomacy'Peter Yeandle, American Historical Review