Circus! from Rome to Ringling

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An analysis, a history, a detailed chronicle - this is the evolution of the present day circus, so recently ending its expected and well-loved tours. All the way back to the individual components in the far away and long ago - Egypt, which knew equilibrists and prestidigitators, juggling, acrobatics, wild and trained wild animals, - Greece and Rome with their connection to religious and civic festivals, the fairs and mysteries of the medieval and renaissance world - until the whole, of ring, clowns, menagerie, sideshow, parade and all the familiar parts, met under English Philip Astley. To France and the continent, back to Sanger, Grimaldi, and the earliest American companies, the picture shifts until Barnum comes along, first with his museums and then to his baptizing of his kind of circus. The trainers are here as are the first families of the ring, the types of traveling and stationary shows, the changing of names, partnerships and business organizations, the coming of railroads, of the circus' vast operational and professional background and of the mighty, expensive to unwieldy modern processing it requires. What may be an epitaph - and an obituary - this gives full color and scope to a towering family tree. (Kirkus Reviews)