Book Review 3 By SVB

Tango: The Art History of Love, Robert Farris Thompson
Robert Thompson is an academic, a professor of Art History at Yale. This is a text book on tango – I mean text book in a good way. It’s comprehensive, supported by a bibliography, and probably the most authoritative book in English about the anthropology of tango. The history of tango is full of myths and falsehoods that have seemingly developed immunity to truth. For example, a common myth is that tango was born in the brothels of Buenos Aires, and practiced as foreplay for the subsequent business transaction. In fact this “born in the brothels” idea came from two brothers who promoted this salacious version of history in order to improve ratings on their radio show. The truth is that sex workers maximized their income producing activities, and didn’t have a lot to time for terpsichorean amusements. Examinations of floorplans from the bordellos of this period confirm that the houses were like a modern office, with many small cubicles to conduct business, but no dance floors. Is it possible that the male clients practiced tango together while waiting in the halls and lobbies? Yes. They might have played cards too. That doesn’t mean poker was born in the brothels of Buenos Aires.
This book is your “go to” authority for sorting out the myths, cultural geographic influences, tango as portrayed by Hollywood, political impacts, personalities, media influences, and other anthropogenic impactors on tango music and dance. I would say five stars, but at times the book drifts into topics under the assumption the reader has some hefty esoteric knowledge that I wouldn’t think most people have. I don’t know that this is a fair criticism – to say the book should be dumbed down – but at times it seems like the audience is considered to be another art anthropologist that already has a solid knowledge of the topic. Four stars out of five.