This history charts the emergence of ballet in the Renaissance courts and follows its complex development right up to the explosion of ballet and modern dance in our time in Europe and America. It examines the arrival during the 18th century of ballet in the professional theatre and follows the expansion of dancing techniques from the early dancing masters through the Romantic period and the golden age of the ballerina. It explores the late 19th-century masterpieces of the Imperial Russian Ballet, the glories of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, and the development of modern ballet throughout the world.