Culture

Prince revels in confusion, defying definition and willfully obscuring his past—and, often, his present. How is it, then, that he helps us understand ourselves better?

Almost anybody can join the circus these days, and, thanks to the success of Cirque du Soleil and other marquee shows, probably make a good living doing it. But as the industry finds itself on solid footing, it loses some of the danger and romance that once made it such a unique draw.

Napoleon said caricatures “did more than all the armies of Europe” to defeat him. King Louis Philippe jailed a comic artist on the grounds that such a work “amounts to an act of violence.”