Apollos Angels is a major new history of classical ballet. It begins in the courts of Europe where ballet was an aspect of aristocratic etiquette & a political event as much as it was an art. The story takes the reader from the sixteenth century through to our own time from Italy & France to Britain Denmark Russia & contemporary America. The reader learns how ballet reflected political & cultural upheavals how dance & dancers were influenced by the Renaissance & French Classicism by Revolution & Romanticism by Expressionism & Bolshevism Modernism & the Cold War. Homans shows how & why the steps were never just the steps: they were a set of beliefs & a way of life. She takes the reader into the lives of dancers & traces the formal evolution of technique choreography & performance. Her book ends by looking at the contemporary crisis in ballet now that the masters are dead & gone & offers a passionate plea for the centrality of classical dance in our civilization. Apollos Angels is a book with broad popular appeal: beautifully written & illustrated it is essential reading for anyone interested in history culture & art.