Seen from above, the big top at the Cirque d’Hiver in Paris resembles a compact, scaled-down cosmos – a metaphysical arena. Spectators seated in circles stare up at trapeze artists who, as Pascal Jacob puts it in his new book, The Circus: A Visual History, re-enact the mythical flight of Icarus and hope to demonstrate that grounded human beings can enjoy the aerodynamic privileges of the gods.

The name says it all: a circus is about wheeling around in circles, as the Earth does in its daily routine or as your dizzy head may do while you watch acrobats vault through space like weightless projectiles or flaming comets. But at least the Earth spins reliably on its axis, held in orbit by its gravitational ties to the sun; viewed here from a sickeningly vertical angle, space has an unexpected terror. We could be gazing into the gullet of a cannon from which the aerialists were fired. Or are we peering down one of the wormholes imagined by physicists – chutes that can send us plunging between worlds?

Nowadays, a drone would be sent to capture this image, with no risk of light-headed, stomach-churning panic. In 1969, a nameless photographer clambered up those shaky rope ladders and balanced there precariously to show us we’re suspended in the vast, draughty universe. A safety net is stretched far below to catch the bodies of the two high flyers if they fall; the mind, unsettled by a vertigo of its own as it surveys the void, has no such protection.

• The Circus: A Visual History by Pascal Jacob is published by Bloomsbury (£30). To order a copy go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99