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 a governing authority. Most of the works listed were published within the previous half year. In some cases, 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 (schroeder@library.ucsb.edu) for possible inclusion in the next issue.

  • All Kinds of Everything. By Dana Rosemary Scallon. Dublin: Gill & MacMillan, 2007. [277 p. ISBN 0-7171-4065-2. $27.15.] Memoir by the Irish pop vocalist-turned-politican who won the Eurovision Song Contest as a nineteen-year-old in 1970, gained fifteen percent of the popular vote as an independent candidate for president of Ireland in 1997, and was elected to the European Parliament in 1999.
  • Along the Roaring River: My Wild Ride from Mao to the Met. By Hao Jiang Tian. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley and Sons, 2008. [xiii, 322 p. ISBN 0-470-05641-X. $27.95.] Tian was born in China in 1954 to Red Army musicians and endured the vicissitudes of the Cultural Revolution, including forced factory work for ten years. He left China in 1983, studied music at the University of Denver, and has eveloped a successful international opera career.
  • Als Bürger leben, als Halbgott sprechen”: Melodram, Deklamation und Sprechgesang im wilhelminischen Reich. By Matthias Nöther. (KlangZeiten, 4.) Cologne: Böhlau, 2008. [x, 328 p. ISBN 3-412-20097-2. €42.90.]
  • Ein Aparter im Unaparten: Untersuchungen zum Songstil von Kurt Weill. By Tobias Fasshauer. Saarbrücken: Pfau, 2007. [204 p. ISBN 3-89727-333-0. €22.]
  • Bacchanalian Sentiments: Musical Experiences and Political Counterpoints in Trinidad. By Kevin K. Birth. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008. [xiv, 258 p. ISBN 0-8223-4141-7, $74.95 (hbk.); 0-8223-4165-4, $21.95 (pbk.).]
  • Bob Marley: Herald of a Postcolonial World? By Jason Toynbee. (Celebrities.) Cambridge, England: Polity Press, 2007. [vii, 263 p. ISBN 0-7456-3088-X, $69.95 (hbk.); 0-7456-3089-8, $22.95 (pbk.).]
  • Brechts “Lukullus” und seine Vertonungen durch Paul Dessau und Roger Sessions: Werk und Ideologie. By Thorsten Preuss. (Literatura: Wissenschaftliche Beiträge zur Moderne und ihrer Geschichte, 18.) Würzburg: Ergon, 2007. [532 p. ISBN 3-89913-539-3. €58.]
  • Bühnen der Politik: Die Oper in europäischen Gesellschaften im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Edited by Sven Oliver Müller and Jutta Toelle. (Die Gesellschaft der Oper: Musikkultur europäischer Metropolen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, 2.) Vienna: Oldenbourg, 2008. [225 p. ISBN 3-486-58570-3. €29.80.]
  • California Polyphony: Ethnic Voices, Musical Crossroads. By Mina Yang. (Music in American Life.) Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008. [ix, 184 p. ISBN 0-252-03243-8. $40.]
  • Cappelle musicali fra Corte, Stato e Chiesa nell’Italia del rinascimento: Atti del convegno internazionale Camaiore, 21-23 ottobre 2005. Edited by Franco Piperno, Gabriella Biagi Ravenni and Andrea Chegai. (Historiae Musicae Cultores, 108.) Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 2007. [ix, 439 p. ISBN 978-88-222-5649-2. €59.50.]
  • Carriacou String Band Serenade: Performing Identity in the Eastern Caribbean. By Rebecca S. Miller. (Music/Culture.) Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2008. [xviii, 269 p. ISBN 0-8195-6858-9. $49.95.]
  • Composing for the Screen in Germany and the USSR: Cultural Politics and Propaganda. Edited by Robynn J. Stilwell. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008. [187 p. ISBN 0-253-34976-1, $55; 0-253-21954-X, $21.95 (pbk.).]
  • “Da habt Ihr es, das Argument der Strasse”: Kulturwissenschaftliche Studien zum politischen Lied. Edited by Martin Butler and Frank Erik Pointner. Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2007. [viii, 280 p. ISBN 3-88476-977-4. €25.]
  • The Defense of Tradition in Brazilian Popular Music: Politics, Culture, and the Creation of Música Popular Brasileira. By Sean Stroud. (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series.) Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2008. [215 p. ISBN 0-7546-6343-4. $99.95.]
  • Dictionnaire des chansons politiques et engagées: Ces chants qui ont changé le monde. By Christiane Passevant and Larry Portis. Paris: Scali, 2008. [463 p. ISBN 2350122107. €34.]
  • La excentricidad de Borges y Perón: Notas sobre política, literatura y música. By Luis Gregorich. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Catálogos, 2007. [190 p. ISBN 9508952431. $14.90.]
  • Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa. By Ingrid Monson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. [xi, 402 p. ISBN 0-19-512825-7. $35.]
  • French Music, Culture, and National Identity, 1870–1939. Edited by Barbara L. Kelly. (Eastman Studies in Music, 54.) Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press, 2008. [xix, 260 p. ISBN 1-58046-272-3. $90.]
  • Great Satan’s Rage: American Negativity and Rap/Metal in the Age of Supercapitalism. By Scott Wilson. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 2008. [199 p. ISBN 0-7190-7463-0. $84.95.]
  • Imposing Harmony: Music and Society in Colonial Cuzco. By Geoffrey Baker. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008. [x, 308 p. ISBN 0-8223-4136-0, $79.95 (hbk.); 0-8223-4160-3, $22.95 (pbk.).]
  • Jewish Identities: Nationalism, Racism, and Utopianism in Twentieth-Century Music. By Klára Móricz. (California Studies in 20th-Century Music, 8; The S. Mark Taper Foundation Imprint in Jewish Studies.) Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. [xvii, 436 p. ISBN 0-520-25088-5. $49.95.]
  • Kanon: The Life of Composer Ara Sevanian. By Eva Bogaardt. Moorpark, Calif.: ShareagePress, 2007. [106 p. ISBN 0-9792867-0-0. $32.50.] Memoir of Armenian composer and kanon virtuoso Ara Sevanian as told to Bogaardt. Sevanian performed at the Kremlin and received a gold medal from Stalin in 1939, was rescued from a prisoner-of-war camp by a German musician during World War II, and eventually emigrated to Californa, where he ran a popular hamburger stand for several decades while continuing to compose.
  • Kirchenmusik während des Kommunismus in Ungarn: Aussagen von Zeitzeugen. By Emilia Molnar. (Südosteuropäische Musikhefte, 7.) Munich: Edition Musik Südost, 2007. [255 p. ISBN 3-939041-10-6. €16.]
  • Komponisten im Exil: 16 Künstlerschicksale des 20. Jahrhunderts. Edited by Ferdinand Zehentreiter. Leipzig: Henschel, 2008. [317 p. ISBN 3-89487-532-1. €29.90.]
  • Literatur, Recht und Musik: Tagung im Nordkolleg Rendsburg vom 16. bis 18. September 2005. Edited by Hermann Weber. (Juristische Zeitgeschichte, 2; Forum juristische Zeitgeschichte, 17.) Berlin: BWV Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2007. [224 p. ISBN 978-3-8305-1339-1. €40.]
  • Luigi Nono: Carteggi concernenti politica, cultura e Partito comunista italiano. By Luigi Nono; edited by Antonio Trudu. (Studi di musica veneta. Archivio Luigi Nono, 3.) Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2008. [lxi, 317 p. ISBN 88-222-5727-8. €40.] Contains over 270 letters, postcards, and telegrams from the Luigi Nono Archives, most published here for the first time. Correspondents include Italian Communist Party and world political leaders as well as musicians and musicologists. Nono and correspondents discuss politics and its relationship to music and culture.
  • Lyrics and the Law: The Constitution of Law in Music. By Aaron R. S. Lorenz. Lake Mary: Vandeplas Publishing, 2007. [x, 219 p. ISBN 1-60042-025-7. $37.95.] The author, a professor of law at Ramapo College in Mahwah, New Jersey, argues that song lyrics reflect classic schools of legal philosophy and that music, in creating images of race, class, and gender, creates law as a form of nontraditional jurisprudence.
  • Mamadou m’a dit: Les luttes des foyers, révolution Afrique, Africa fête. By Gilles de Staal. (Des paroles en actes.) Paris: Syllepse, 2008. [217 p. ISBN 2-84950-17-94. €20.]
  • Music and Conflict Transformation: Harmonies and Dissonances in Geopolitics. Edited by Olivier Urbain. (Global Peace and Policy.) London: I. B. Tauris, 2008. [xviii, 234 p. ISBN 1-84511-528-7. $75.]
  • Music Makes the Nation: Nationalist Composers and Nation Building in Nineteenth-Century Europe. By Benjamin W. Curtis. Amherst, N.Y.: Cambria Press, 2008. [x, 265 p. ISBN 1-60497-522-9. $104.95.]
  • Music, Memory, and Resistance: Calypso and the Caribbean Literary Imagination. Edited by Sandra Pouchet Paquet, Patricia Joan Saunders, and Stephen Stuempfle. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers, 2007. [xlii, 369 p. ISBN 976-637-290-X. $29.95.]
  • Music of the World War II Era. By William H. Young and Nancy K. Young. (American History through Music.) Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2008. [xix, 261 p. ISBN 0-313-33891-4. $59.95.]
  • Música, sociedade e política: Alberto Nepomuceno e a República musical. By Avelino Romero Pereira. (História, cultura e idéias, 7.) Rio de Janeiro: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 2007. [480 p. ISBN 85-710-8299-5. $35.80.]
  • Musik och politik i skuggan av nazismen: Kurt Atterberg och de svensk-tyska musikrelationerna. By Petra Garberding. (Södertörn Doctoral Dissertations, 19.) Lund: Sekel, 2007. [293 p. ISBN 978-91-85767-08-3. €68.]
  • Musikkulturen in der Revolte: Studien zu Rock, Avantgarde und Klassik im Umfeld von “1968.” Edited by Beate Kutschke. (Geschichte.) Stuttgart: Steiner, 2008. [249 p. ISBN 3-515-09085-1. €49.]
  • Nationalhymnen als kulturelle Identitätselemente des Verfassungsstaates. By Peter Häberle. (Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen und Reden zur Philosophie, Politik und Geistesgeschichte, 44.) Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2007. [115 p. ISBN 3-428-12564-9. €24.]
  • Never Sang for Hitler: The Life and Times of Lotte Lehmann, 1888-1976. By Michael H. Kater. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. [xv, 394 p. ISBN 0-521-87392-4. $35.] “[T]his book aims to be both a descriptive narrative of Lehmann's life and a critical analysis of the interconnections of the artist and society. Kater describes the varying phases of Lehmann's life, as well as the sociocultural settings in which she finds herself - whether in the Wilhemine Empire, First Austrian Republic, Nazi Germany, or the United States” (jacket).
  • Orfeo al servizio del Führer: Totalitarismo e musica nella Germania del Terzo Reich. By Lorenzo Lorusso. (Harmonia mundi, 5.) Palermo: L’epos, 2008. [287 p. ISBN 88-8302-363-3. €28.30.]
  • Operette unterm Hakenkreuz: Zwischen hoffähiger Kunst und “Entartung”; Beiträge einer Tagung der Staatsoperette Dresden. Edited by Wolfgang Schaller. Berlin: Metropol, 2007. [231 p. ISBN 3-938690-35-6. €21.]
  • Pace: Musik zwischen Krieg und Frieden: Vierzig Werkporträts. By Stefan Hanheide. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2007. [284 p. ISBN 3-7618-1770-4. €14.95.] Forty essays consider works from the early Renaissance (Dufay, Supremum est mortalibus bonum pax, 1433) through the twentieth-first century (Dinescu, Wie Tau auf den Bergen Zions, 2003) and include musical analysis as well as historical background and political context.
  • A Personal Stand: Observations and Opinions from a Freethinking Roughneck. By Trace Adkins. New York: Villard Books, 2007. [x, 244 p. ISBN 0-345-49933-6. $23.95.] The country music star expresses his opinions on current political issues.
  • Postnational Musical Identities: Cultural Production, Distribution, and Consumption in a Globalized Scenario. Edited by Ignacio Corona and Alejandro L. Madrid. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2007. [x, 240 p. ISBN 0-7391-1821-8. $70.]
  • A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music. By George E. Lewis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. [xlviii, 676 p. ISBN 0-226-47695-2. $35.]
  • Protest, Opposition, Widerstand. Vol. 4, Die Ambivalenz der Moderne. Edited by Hanns-Werner Heister. (Musik/Gesellschaft/Geschichte, 4.) Berlin: Weidler, 2007. [220. ISBN 3-89693-503-8. €31.]
  • Rebellische Musik: Gesellschaftlicher Protest und kultureller Wandel um 1968. Edited by Arnold Jacobshagen and Markus Leniger. (Musicolonia, 1.) Cologne: Verlag Dohr, 2007. [320 p. ISBN 3-936655-48-0. €39.80.]
  • Revolutionizing Children’s Records: The Young People’s Records and Children’s Record Guild Series, 1946–1977. By David Bonner. (American Folk Music and Musicians, 9.) Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2008. [xii, 345 p. ISBN 0-8108-5919-X. $65.] “[T]ells the history of YPR/CRG, explaining how these two labels intersected important developments in the histories of mass marketing, recording technology, educational philosophy, folk music, contemporary composition, and Cold War politics. . . . [C]harts the commercial, critical, and political response . . . including a historical footnote to the ‘Red Scare’ unavailable in existing Cold War literature” (cover).
  • Rossini in Restoration Paris: The Sound of Modern Life. By Benjamin Walton. (Cambridge Studies in Opera.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. [xv, 349 p. ISBN 0-521-87060-7. $95.]
  • Russian Music and Nationalism from Glinka to Stalin. By Marina Frolova-Walker. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. [xiv, 402 p. ISBN 0-300-11273-4. $50.]
  • Sing It Pretty: A Memoir. By Bess Lomax Hawes. (Music in American Life.) Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008. [182 p. ISBN 0-252-03313-2, $65 (hbk.); 0-252-07509-9, $19.95 (pbk.).] Bess Lomax Hawes, daughter of John Lomax and brother of Alan Lomax, was the first director of the Folk and Traditional Arts Program at the National Endowment for the Arts and a leader in the development of other state and federal programs in support of folk arts.
  • Songs and Politics in Eastern Africa. Editied by Kimani Njogu and Hervé Maupeu. Dar es Salaam: Mkuki Na Nyota Publishers, 2007. [xvii, 401 p. ISBN 9987-449-42-5. $39.95.]
  • Spurensicherung:Der Komponist Ernst Toch (1887–1964), Mannheimer Emigrantenschicksale. Edited by Hermann Jung. (Mannheimer Hochschulschriften, 6.) Frankfurt: Lang, 2007. [360 p. + CD-ROM. ISBN 3-631-57400-2. €49.80.]
  • Subversive Sounds:Race and the Birth of Jazz in New Orleans. By Charles Hersch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. [xii, 289 p. ISBN 0-226-32867-8. $35.]
  • Symphonic Aspirations:German Music and Politics, 1900–1945. By Karen Painter. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007. [vi, 354 p. ISBN 0-674-02661-6. $49.95.]
  • Taktgeber oder Tabuisierte: Komponisten in der DDR: Staatliche Kulturpolitik in den fünfziger Jahren. By Peggy Klemke. Marburg: Tectum, 2007. [288 p. ISBN 3-8288-9328-7. €24.90.]
  • There’s a Riot Going On: Revolutionaries, Rock Stars, and the Rise and Fall of ‘60s Counter-Culture. By Peter Doggett. Edinburgh: Canongate, 2007. [598 p. ISBN 1-84195-940-5. £25.]
  • Der Topos der Juden: Studien zur Geschichte des Antisemitismus im deutschsprachigen Musikschrifttum. By Annkatrin Dahm. (Jüdische Religion, Geschichte und Kultur, 7.) Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007. [388 p. ISBN 3-525-56996-3. €69.90.]
  • Writing through Music: Essays on Music, Culture, and Politics. By Jann Pasler. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. [xiv, 513 p. ISBN 0-19-532489-7. $55.] Previously published essays.