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This book illuminates the history of popular dance, one of the most influential and widespread leisure practices in early twentieth-century Britain. It focuses on the relationship between dancing and national identity construction, in a period when Britain participated in increasingly global markets of cultural production, consumption and exchange.
List of contents
Introduction
1 Dancing mad! The modernisation of popular dance
2 Who makes new dances? The dance profession and the evolution of style
3 At the palais: the dance hall industry and the standardisation of experience
4 The dance evil: gender, sexuality and the representation of popular dance
5 English style: foreign culture, race and the Anglicisation of popular dance
6 Doing the Lambeth Walk: novelty dances and the commodification of the nation
7 Dancing democracy in wartime Britain
8 The 'infernal jitterbug' and the transformation of popular dance
Epilogue: Come dancing: popular dance in post-war Britain
Select bibliography
Index
About the author
Allison Abra is Assistant Professor of History and a Fellow in the Dale Center for the Study of War & Society at the University of Southern Mississippi
Summary
This book illuminates the history of popular dance, one of the most influential and widespread leisure practices in early twentieth-century Britain. It focuses on the relationship between dancing and national identity construction, in a period when Britain participated in increasingly global markets of cultural production, consumption and exchange.
