May I Have the Pleasure?

This book sets out to trace the development of our social dancing from its origins in the ancient ring dances of antiquity to the teenager's beat dancing of today. From the invention of the couple dance by the Troubadors of Provence, through the domination of the Italian, the English and the French courts to the French Revolution and then on to the most shocking dance ever known to Western man, the Waltz. Eighty years later, and the syncopated beat of ragtime leads us to the age of the Foxtrot and the Quickstep - until Bill Haley starts to play and Elvis moves his pelvis... This is not a look at how to dance but what people danced, and why.