The books listed in this column address music as it relates to 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. Readers are welcome to submit additional titles to [email protected] for possible inclusion in the next issue.

  • Blues Music in the Sixties: A Story in Black and White. By Ulrich Adelt. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2010. [viii, 192 p. ISBN-13 9780813547503. $39.95.]
  • “Blut und Geist”: Bach, Mendelssohn, und ihre Musik im Dritten Reich. By Jörg Hansen and Gerald Vogt. Eisenach: Bachhaus Eisenach, 2009. [59 p. ISBN-13 9783932257-06-3. €23.] Exhibition catalog.
  • Felsensprengerin, Brückenbauerin, Wegbereiterin: Die Komponistin Ethel Smyth = Rock Blaster, Bridge Builder, Road Paver: The Composer Ethel Smyth. Edited by Cornelia Bartsch, Rebecca Grotjahn, and Melanie Unseld. (Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte der Musik, 2.) Munich: Allitera, 2010. [263 p. ISBN-13 9783869060682. $28.]
  • Gewalt – Bedrohung – Krieg: Georg Friedrich Händels “Judas Maccabaeus”: Interdisziplinare Studien. Edited by Dominik Höink and Jürgen Heidrich. Göttingen: V&R Unipress, 2010. [242 p. ISBN-13 9783899717181. €39.90.]
  • Give ‘Em Soul, Richard! Race, Radio, and Rhythm and Blues in Chicago. By Richard E. Stamz with Patrick A. Roberts. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010. [xiv, 139 p. ISBN-13 9780252034985, $60 (hbk.); 9780252076862, $20 (pbk.).]
  • Gouverner l’opéra: Une histoire politique de la musique à Naples, 1767–1815. By Mélanie Traversier. (Collection de l’École français de Rome, 424.) Rome: École français de Rome, 2009. [692 p. ISBN-13 9782728308668. €58.]
  • Hip Hop and Inequality: Searching for the “Real” Slim Shady. By Simona J. Hill and Dave Ramsaran. Amherst, N.Y.: Cambria Press, 2009. [xi, 209 p. ISBN-13 9781604976519. $104.99.]
  • Holocaust-Kompositionen als Medien der Erinnerung: Die Entwicklung eines musikwissenschaftlichen Gedächtniskonzepts. By Kerstin Sicking. (European University Studies, 36: Musicology, 259.) Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2010. [408 p. ISBN-13 9783631587249. €62.80.]
  • Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture. By Alice Echols. New York: W. W. Norton, 2010. [xxvi, 338 p. ISBN-13 9780393066753. $26.95.]
  • A Jewish Orchestra in Nazi Germany: Musical Politics and the Berlin Jewish Culture League. By Lily E. Hirsch. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010. [viii, 258 p. ISBN-13 9780472117109. $70.]
  • Kirill Kondrashin: His Life in Music. By Gregor Tassie. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2010. [xiii, 353 p. ISBN-13 9780810869745. $65.]
  • Liszt: Virtuose subversif. By Bruno Moysan. (Perpetuum mobile.) Lyon: Symétrie, 2009. [296 p. ISBN-13 9782914373418. €45.]
  • Mark E. Smith and The Fall: Art, Music, and Politics. Edited by Michael Goddard and Benjamin Halligan. (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series.) Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2010. [xvi, 209 p. ISBN-13 9780754668626, $99.95 (hbk.); 9780754668671, $24.95 (pbk.).]
  • Mediterranean Israeli Music and the Politics of the Aesthetic. By Amy Horowitz. (Jewish Folklore and Anthropology Series.) Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2010. [xvii, 251 p. + 1 CD. ISBN-13 9780814334652. $29.95.]
  • Musical ImagiNation: U.S.–Colombian Identity and the Latin Music Boom. By María Elena Cepeda. New York: New York University Press, 2010. [xii, 255 p. ISBN-13 9780814716915, $65 (hbk.); 9780814716922, $22 (pbk.).]
  • Music and Cyberliberties. By Patrick Burkart. (Music/Culture.) Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2010. [xi, 180 p. ISBN-13 9780819569172, $70 (hbk.); 9780819569189, $24.95 (pbk.).]
  • Music and Monumentality: Commemoration and Wonderment in Nineteenth-Century Germany. By Alexander Rehding. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. [vii, 308 p. ISBN-13 9780195385380. $49.95.]
  • Music and the Play of Power in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia. By Laudan Nooshin. (SOAS Musicology Series.) Farnham, England: Ashgate, 2009. [xv, 340 p. ISBN-13 9780754634577. $124.95.]
  • Music and the Southern Belle: From Accomplished Lady to Confederate Composer. By Candace Bailey. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2010. [xiii, 255 p. ISBN-13 9780809329601. $29.95.]
  • Music and Victorian Philanthropy: The Tonic Sol-Fa Movement. By Charles Edward McGuire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. [xxiii, 240 p. ISBN-13 9780521449687. $90.]
  • Music, Culture, and Social Reform in the Age of Wagner. By James Garratt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. [xi, 292 p. ISBN-13 9780521110549. $95.]
  • Musik als Form geistigen Widerstandes: Jüdische Musikerinnen und Musiker, 1933–1945: Das Beispiel Frankfurt am Main. Edited by Joachim Carlos Martini. Frankfurt am Main: Brandes & Apsel, 2010. [2 vols. ISBN-13 9783860996225. €54.90.]
  • Musik und Verantwortung: Perspektiven der Musikpolitik in Deutschland. Edited by Karl Ermert. (Wolfenbütteler Akademie-Texte / Bundesakademie für Kulturelle Bildung Wolfenbüttel, 41.) Wolfenbüttel: Bundesakademie für kulturelle Bildung, 2009. [111 p. ISBN-13 9783929622416. €9.25.]
  • Neue Linke / Neue Musik: Kulturtheorien und künstlerische Avantgarde in den 1960er und 70er Jahren. By Beate Kutschke. (Musik – Kultur – Gender, 2.) Cologne: Böhlau, 2007. [432 p. ISBN-13 9783412179069. €51.30.]
  • Playing across a Divide: Israeli–Palestinian Musical Encounters. By Benjamin Brinner. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. [360 p. ISBN-13 9780195175813, $99 (hbk.); 9780195395945, $25 (pbk.).]
  • Political Folk Music in America from Its Origins to Bob Dylan. By Lawrence J. Epstein. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2010. [xii, 201 p. ISBN-13 9780786448623. $35.]
  • Politik mit sinnlichen Mitteln: Oper und Fest am Münchner Hof (1680-1745). By Sebastian Werr. Cologne: Böhlau, 2010. [330 p. ISBN-13 9783412205577. €42.90.]
  • Le prince et la musique: Les passions musicales de Louis XIV. Edited by Jean Duron. (Etudes du centre de musique baroque de Versailles.) Wavre: Mardaga, 2009. [309 p. ISBN-13 9782804700249. €29.]
  • Revolutionsidee und Staatskritik in Richard Wagners Schriften: Perspektiven metapolitischen Denkens. By Rüdiger Jacobs. (Wagner in der Diskussion, 4.) Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 2010. [461 p. ISBN-13 9783826042805. €39.80.]
  • Rock and Roll in the Rocket City: The West, Identity, and Ideology in Soviet Dniepropetrovsk, 1960–1985. By Sergei I. Zhuk. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. [xvii, 440 p. ISBN-13 9780801895500. $65.]
  • Rock & Roll Jihad: A Muslim Rock Star’s Revolution. By Salman Ahmad. New York: Free Press, 2010. [229 p. ISBN-13 9781416597674. $24.99.]
  • Der russische Komponist Vjaceslav Artemov: Ein Beispiel für die politisch und gesellschaftlich bedingte Rezeption nonkonformistischer sowjetischer Komponisten. By Andreas Kloth. (Musikwissenschaft / Musikpädagogik in der Blauen Eule, 88). Essen: Die Blaue Eule, 2009. [465 p. ISBN-13 9783899242447. €39.]
  • Serbian and Greek Art Music: A Patch to Western Music History. Edited by Katy Romanou. Bristol, U.K.: Intellect, 2009. [214 p. ISBN-13 9781841502786. $45.]
  • Shostakovich in Dialogue: Form, Imagery, and Ideas in Quartets 1-7. By Judith Kuhn. Farnham, England: Ashgate, 2010. [xv, 296 p. ISBN-13 9780754664062. $99.95.]
  • Sibelius: A Composer’s Life and the Awakening of Finland. By Glenda Dawn Goss. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. [xxi, 549 p. ISBN-13 9780226304779. $55.]
  • Songs in Black and Lavender: Race, Sexual Politics, and Women’s Music. By Eileen M. Hayes. (African American Music in Global Perspective.) Urbana: University of Illinois Press. [x, 231 p. ISBN-13 9780252035142, $75 (hbk.); 9780252076985, $25 (pbk.).]
  • Songs of Protest, Songs of Love: Popular Ballads in Eighteenth-Century Britain. By Robin Ganev.(Studies in Popular Culture.) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009. [xi, 241 p. ISBN-13 9780719078903. $89.95.]
  • Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear. By Steve Goodman. (Technologies of Lived Abstraction.) Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2010. [xx, 270 p. ISBN 9780262013475. $35.]
  • Talkin’ ‘bout a Revolution: Music and Social Change in America. By Dick Weissman. San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2010. [400 p. ISBN 9781423442837. $24.99.]
  • Tönende Verführung: NS-Propaganda durch Filmmusik. By Andreas Pietsch. Berlin: MBV, Mensch und Buch Verlag, 2009. [389 p. ISBN-13 9783866646988. €44.]
  • Verkettungen und Querstände: Weberns Schüler Karl Amadeus Hartmann und Ludwig Zenk und die politischen Implikationen ihres kompositorischen Handelns vor und nach 1945. By Marie-Therese Hommes. (Forum Musikwissenschaft. 4.) Schliengen: Edition Argus, 2010. [441 p. ISBN-13 9783931264543. €49.]
  • Where the Dark and the Light Folks Meet: Race and the Mythology, Politics, and Business of Jazz. By Randall Sandke. (Studies in Jazz, 60.) Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2010. [x, 277 p. ISBN-13 9780810866522, $40.]
  • Working on a Dream: The Progressive Political Vision of Bruce Springsteen. By David Masciotra. New York: Continuum, 2010. [xvi, 266 p. ISBN-13 9780826425058. $21.95.]