The books listed in this column address music as political expression or focus to a significant degree on relationships between individual musicians or musical communities and the state. Most of the works listed were published within the previous half year; some were published in the second half of 2006 but did not come to my attention soon enough to be included in the previous column. For a few citations, brief annotations are provided to indicate political themes not implied by the titles. The list was compiled from a variety of bibliographic tools such as databases of book vendors, online catalogs, and Global Books in Print. Readers are welcome to submit additional titles to my attention ([email protected]) for possible inclusion in the next issue.

  • The Africanist Aesthetic in Global Hip-Hop: Power Moves. By Halifu Osumare. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. [xii, 219 p. ISBN 1-4039-7630-7. $65.] Examines political as well as sociocultural and economic aspects of globalized hip hop.
  • Bach’s Changing World: Voices in the Community. Edited by Carol K. Baron. (Eastman Studies in Music.) Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2006. [xvi, 264 p. ISBN 1-58046-190-0. $75.] Examines socio-political change in Leipzig and the Saxon Electorate during the time of J. S. Bach.
  • Beyond Exoticism: Western Music and the World. By Timothy D. Taylor. (Refiguring American Music.) Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2007. [xv, 304 p. ISBN 0-8223-3957-9, $79.95 (hbk.); ISBN 0-8223-3968-4, $22.95 (pbk.).] This study is “organized around three clusters of the organized domination of other peoples by westerners—colonialism, imperialism, and globalization—and the ways these systems construct different forms of otherness, conceptualizations of modern European selfhoods, and music” (p. 9).
  • Chorus and Community. Edited by Karen Ahlquist. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. [x, 323 p. + 1 CD. ISBN 0-252-03037-0, $65 (hbk.); ISBN 0-252-07284-7, $30 (pbk).] “Two essays [in this collection] present choruses whose politics determine everything . . . even as their performances provide the musical spoonfuls of sugar to help the political medicine go down” (p. 6). See part 4, “The Activist Chorus.”
  • The Correspondence of Alan Bush and John Ireland: 1927-1961. Compiled by Rachel O’Higgins. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2006. [xxxviii, 360 p. ISBN 0-7546-4044-2. $99.95.] “The correspondence as a whole shows the continuing influence of the First World War, the rise of Nazism, the increasing influence of the Soviet Union, and the Second World War on the outlook of the two men. It is interesting to see how far Bush’s left-wing views were reflected in Ireland’s own attitude to politics and life” (preface, p. [vii]).
  • Critical Composition Today. Edited by Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf. (New Music and Aesthetics in the 21st Century, 5.) Hofheim: Wolke Verlag, 2006. [209 p. ISBN 978-3-936000-16-0. €22.] Eleven essays from a 2004 conference address the politically aware, left-leaning, “critical” approaches to composition that arose around the late sixties; these approaches are problematized in light of postmodernism and social changes since the late eighties.
  • Deutsche Leitkultur Musik? Zur Musikgeschichte nach dem Holocaust. Edited by Albrecht Riethmüller. (Musikwissenschaft.) Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 2006. [278 p. ISBN 3-515-08974-8. €40.]
  • Erlösung vom Erlöser? Israel und Richard Wagner. By Gottfried Wagner. (Wiener Vorlesungen im Rathaus, 128.) Vienna: Picus, 2006. [63 p. ISBN 3-85452-528-1. €7.90.]
  • Europe, Empire, and Spectacle in Nineteenth-Century British Music. Edited by Rachel Cowgill and Julian Rushton. (Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain.) Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2006. [xv, 299 p. ISBN 0-7546-5208-4. $99.95.] See the essays by David Wright (“Sir Frederick Bridge and the Musical Furtherance of the 1902 Imperial Project”), Meirion Hughes (“Attwood’s St David’s Day: Music, Wales, and War in 1800”), and Christopher Scheer (“For the Sake of the Union: The Nation in Stanford’s Fourth Irish Rhapsody”).
  • Fayrūz und die Brüder Raḥbānī: Musik, Moderne und Nation im Libanon. By Ines Weinrich. (Mitteilungen zur Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte der Islamischen Welt, 21.) Würzburg: Ergon, 2006. [495 p. ISBN 3-89913-538-5. €59.]
  • Grauzone einer Wissenschaft: Musiksoziologie in der DDR unter Berücksichtigung der UdSSR. By Natalia Nowack. Weimar: VDG, Verlag und Datenbank für Geisteswissenschaften, 2006. [425 p. ISBN 3-89739-515-0. €37.80.]
  • Kontinuitäten, Diskontinuitäten: Musik und Politik in Deutschland zwischen 1920 und 1970. Edited by Heinz Geuen and Anno Mungen. Schliengen: Edition Argus, 2006. [187 p. ISBN 3-931264-60-2. €28.]
  • Music after Hitler, 1945-1955. By Toby Thacker. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2007. [ix, 280 p. ISBN 0-7546-5346-3. $99.95.]
  • Music-Making in North-East England during the Eighteenth Century. By Roz Southey. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2006. [x, 259 p. ISBN 0-7546-5097-3. $89.95.] See part 4: “Music as a Spur to Patriotism,” chapter 8: “In War and Peace.”
  • The Music of Louis Andriessen. By Yayoi Uno Everett. (Music in the Twentieth Century.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. [xvi, 266 p. ISBN 0-521-86423-2. $90.] Includes detailed examination of Andriessen’s political ideology and its influence on his compositional approaches. See chapter 4, “Politics and Concept Works.”
  • Musik in Diktaturen des 20. Jahrhunderts: Internationales Symposium an der Bergischen Universität Wuppertal vom 28./29.2.2004. Edited by Michaela G. Grochulski, Oliver Kautny, and Helmke Jan Keden. (Musik im Metrum der Macht, 3.) [vi, 309 p. ISBN 3-924522-23-0. €44.50.]
  • Musik in Wien, 1938-1945: Symposion 2004. Edited by Carmen Ottner. (Studien zu Franz Schmidt, 15.) Vienna: Doblinger, 2006. [xii, 372 p. ISBN 3-900695-87-3. €28.90.]
  • New Music, New Allies: American Experimental Music in West Germany from Zero Hour to Reunification. By Amy C. Beal. (California Studies in Twentieth-Century Music, 4.) Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. [xvi, 340 p. ISBN 978-0-520-24755-0. $49.95.]
  • Paris Africain: Rhythms of the African Diaspora. By James A. Winders. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. [xv, 231 p. ISBN 1-4039-6004-6. $39.95.]
  • Prophet Singer: The Voice and Vision of Woody Guthrie. By Mark Allan Jackson. (American Made Music Series.) Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007. [viii, 303 p. ISBN 1-57806-915-7. $50.]
  • Proud to be an Okie: Cultural Politics, Country Music, and Migration to Southern California. By Peter La Chapelle. (American Crossroads, 22.) Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. [xiv, 350 p. ISBN 0-520-24889-9. $24.95.]
  • The Puccini Problem: Opera, Nationalism, and Modernity. By Alexandra Wilson. (Cambridge Studies in Opera.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. [xii, 321 p. ISBN 0-521-85688-4. $90.]
  • Il ragazzo di Portoria: La canzone italiana durante il fascismo. By Piero Palumbo. (Musica e teatro.) Genova: De Ferrari, 2006. [111 p. ISBN 88-7172-746-0. €18.]
  • Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Worlds: Innovation and Tradition in Twentieth-Century American Music. Edited by Ray Allen and Ellie M. Hisama. (Eastman Studies in Music.) Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2007. [x, 308 p. ISBN 1-58046-212-X. $75.] Includes “In Pursuit of a Proletarian Music: Ruth Crawford’s ‘Sacco, Vanzetti’” by Ellie M. Hisama.
  • Schostakowitsch und die Symphonie: Referate des Bonner Symposions 2004. Edited by Hartmut Hein and Wolfram Steinbeck. (Bonner Schriften zur Musikwissenschaft, 7.) Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2007. [247 p. ISBN 3-631-56002-8. €42.50.]
  • Schubert in the European Imagination. Vol. 2, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna. By Scott Messing. (Eastman Studies in Music.) Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2007. [424 p. ISBN 1-5804-6213-6. $55.] Chapters discuss the political symbolism behind the construction and reception of Schubert's monument in Vienna's Stadtpark, and the relationship between the city's centennial celebration of the composer in 1897 and local elections.
  • Sing My Whole Life Long: Jenny Vincent’s Life in Folk Music and Activism. By Craig Smith. (Counterculture Series.) Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007. [xxii, 175 p. ISBN 0-8263-4226-4. $19.95.]
  • Von allgemeingültigen Neuen: Analysen engagierter Musik: Dessau, Eisler, Ginastera, Hartmann. By Hanns-Werner Heister; edited by Thomas Phleps and Wieland Reich. Saarbrücken: Pfau, 2006. [154 p. ISBN 3-89727-331-4. €18.]
  • Von Grenzen und Ländern, Zentren und Rändern: Der Erste Weltkrieg und die Verschiebungen in der musikalischen Geographie Europas. Edited by Christa Brüstle, Guido Heldt, and Eckhard Weber. Schliengen: Edition Argus, 2006. [369 p. ISBN 3-931264-27-0. €43.]
  • Winifred Wagner: A Life at the Heart of Hitler’s Bayreuth. By Brigitte Hamann. Trans. Alan Bance. Orlando: Harcourt, 2006. [ix, 582 p. ISBN 978-0-15-101308-1. $35.]
  • Words and Music of Bruce Springsteen. By Rob Kirkpatrick. Westport: Praeger, 2007. [xiii, 198 p. ISBN 0-275-98938-5. $44.95.]
  • World War I Sheet Music: 9,670 Patriotic Songs Published in the United States, 1914-1920. with More Than 600 Covers Illustrated. By Bernard S. Parker. 2 vols. Jefferson, N. C.: McFarland, 2007. [vii, 939 p. ISBN 0-7864-2493-1. $95.]
  • Wunschkonzert: Unterhaltungsmusik und Propaganda im Rundfunk des Dritten Reichs. By Hans-Jörg Koch. Graz: Ares, 2006. [280 p. ISBN 3-902475-22-6. €19.90.]