Circus History

Bruno Wildermann of the Wrinfield Circus is the world’s greatest trapeze artist, a clairvoyant with near-supernatural powers and an implacable enemy of the East European regime that arrested his family and murdered his wife. The CIA needs such a man and recruits Bruno for an impossible raid—on the impregnable Lubylan fortress, where his family his held. Under cover of a circus tour, Bruno prepares to return to his homeland. But before the journey even begins a murderer strikes twice. Somewhere in the circus there is a communist agent with orders to stop Bruno at any cost.

The year is 1985, and O' Hare's Travelling Circus is touring the country. Their spectacular acts mesmerize audiences everywhere with entertaining clowns, high-flying acrobats, a muscular strongman, and a daredevil motorcycle stuntman, to name a few. They also have Psychic Sheila - resident fortune-teller and agony aunt - who stumbles through life, one disastrous romantic interlude at a time. Of course, no close-knit group would be complete without its fair share of secrets and who better to uncover them than Sheila, with her sixth sense and natural nose for a good mystery.

From the author of A Witch in Time comes a magical story spanning from Jazz Age Paris to modern-day America of family secrets, sacrifice, and lost love set against the backdrop of a mysterious circus. Paris, 1925: To enter the Secret Circus is to enter a world of wonder—a world where women...

Captain Eddie V. Rickenbacker, originally from Ohio, was best known as one of the commanders of the 94th "Hat-in-the-Ring" Squadron, a crack unit of World War I pilots that included many former members of the famed Lafayette Escadrille. The 94th ended the war in France with the highest number of air victories of any American squadron.

In 1944, the big top of Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus in Hartford caught fire during the middle of an afternoon performance. Nine thousand people were inside. In seconds, the big top was burning out of control. The toll of the fire, and its circumstances, haunt Hartford to the present day. But it is the intense, detailed narrative - before, after, and especially during the panic under the burning tent - that will remain with listeners long after they finish this book.

The nineteenth century saw the American circus move from a reviled and rejected form of entertainment to the “Greatest Show on Earth.” Circus Life by Micah D. Childress looks at this transition from the perspective of the people who owned and worked in circuses and how they responded to the new incentives that rapid industrialization made possible.

¡Señores y señoras! ¡Damas y caballeros! ¡El mayor espectáculo del mundo ha llegado a su ciudad! Estas palabras son el preámbulo de la aparición de algo mágico, que despierta nuestro más tierno recuerdo. Existen pocas disciplinas que susciten en el espectador sentimientos tan universales como los de la risa, la admiración, la angustia, el suspenso, la alegría, el asombro, el miedo, el romance, la luz o la oscuridad. Todo eso... es el circo.

At the Circus Maximus, the guttural cheers of the spectators reverberated across the enormous open space, but their cries could hardly be heard over the rumble of the ground. On the ellipse-shaped track, 5 charioteers would skew their bodies and steer their magnificent vehicles around the curves. Gusts of sand and dirt flew up from the whizzing wheels and encircled the pounding hooves of the stunning stallions. Distracted personnel and guards dragging their feet, were considered fair game. As one chariot careened to the side, preparing to collide with another chariot.

In Ludlow, Kentucky, where Confederate flags once dominated the landscape and call for civil war echoed on Facebook, a circus raised its big top—and never left. On January 20, 2025, as Donald Trump returned to office, the KKK plastered the town with hateful fliers, but the circus, a 250-year-old beacon of diversity and inclusion, stood its ground. This is the true, stranger-than-fiction story of how a creative community defied hate, bureaucracy, and small-town politics to transform Ludlow into Kentucky’s hottest real estate market.

In Edward Whittemore’s masterful and surreal alternate history, a man’s search for answers about his vanished parents propels him on an odyssey from the present into the past, from a bar in the Bronx to Tokyo and Shanghai during the Second World War. Quin, born in China and raised in the Bronx, is orphaned in the closing days of the Second World War when his parents go missing and are presumed dead in Shanghai.

Modern views of animals range from hunters who pay big money to go on safaris in Africa to vegans who refuse to use even the wool or milk from a fellow creature, and as is the case with most controversies, most people fall in the middle, not wanting to kick a dog but still enjoying a good steak. However, in the early 20th century, the standards were much different, with animals seen as strictly property to be gathered and used with little to no consideration about their health or feelings.

He wasn’t always the Great Showman. In fact, Phineas Taylor Barnum grew up in relative poverty with only his wits to help him along. When his father died, the 15-year-old boy entered the working world as a shopkeeper’s assistant. In leaps and bounds, he worked his way from assistant to shop owner, lottery office owner, and, eventually, entertainment promoter. The bulk of his career was focused on his beloved American Museum, where thousands of ticket holders flocked every day to look at the human oddities, stuffed animals, live whale, and American memorabilia.

Almost 7,000 fans eagerly packed into the Ringling Brothers big top on July 6, 1944. With a single careless act, an afternoon at the "Greatest Show on Earth" quickly became one of terror and tragedy as the paraffin-coated circus tent caught fire. Panicked crowds rushed for the few exits, but in minutes, the tent collapsed on those still struggling to escape below. A total of 168 lives were lost, many of them children, with many more injured and forever scarred by the events.

Lassen sie sich mit diesem Hörbuch antik unterhalten! Der römische Circus war für die Menschen im alten Rom ein zentraler Ort. Tauchen sie mit Autor Wolfram Letzner ein in eine Welt der antiken Massenunterhaltung und erfahren sie mehr über die entsprechenden Bauwerke, Veranstaltungen und Besucher zu jener Zeit.

Two of America’s most perceptive political reporters join forces for an unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at the race for the White House in POLITICO’s Playbook 2012, a series of four instant digital books on the 2012 presidential election. The second edition, Inside the Circus, pulls...