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.

  • Adolf Busch: The Life of an Honest Musician. By Tully Potter. London: Toccata Press, 2010. [2 vols. ISBN-13 9780907689508. $145.]
  • Blood and Thunder: Inside an Ulster Protestant Band. By Darach MacDonald. Cork, Ireland: Mercier, 2010. [352 p. ISBN-13 9781856356725. $21.95.]
  • British Music and the French Revolution. By Paul F. Rice. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars, 2010. [xv, 399 p. ISBN-13 9781443821100. ₤49.99.]
  • Calypso As an Instrument of Social Justice: Contributions from the Conference Held in Saô Paolo, Brazil, 2004. (Quaderni, 3). Rome: Colombo, 2007. [vii, 130 p. ISBN-13 9788886359900. €15.]
  • Ces chansons qui font l'histoire. By Bertrand Dicale. Paris: Textuel, 2010. [352 p. ISBN-13 9782845973947. €19.]
  • Colonial Counterpoint: Music in Early Modern Manila. By D. R. M. Irving. (Currents in Latin American and Iberian Music.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. [x, 394 p. ISBN-13 9780195378269. $24.95.]
  • La complainte et la plainte: Chansons, justice et culture dans la Bretagne du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle. By Eva Guilloral. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2010. [580 p. ISBN-13 9782753511422. €39.]
  • A Critical History of New Music in China. By Ching-Chih Liu. Translated by Caroline Mason. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2010. [xxi, 911 p. ISBN-13 9789629963606. $70.]
  • Déracinements: Musique, exil et transfert culturel pendant et après le troisième Reich. Edited by Amaury du Closel and Philippe Olivier. (Musique; Voix étouffées.) Paris: Hermann, 2009. [231 p. ISBN-13 9782705668259. €30.]
  • Different Drummers: Rhythm and Race in the Americas. By Martin Munro. (Music of the African Diaspora, 14.) Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. [ix, 280 p. ISBN-13 9780520262829, $65 (hbk.); 9780520262836, $27.50 (pbk.).]
  • Fest und Musik als Mittel kaiserlicher Machtpolitik: Das Haus Habsburg und die deutsche Nationalkirche in Rom S. Maria dell’Anima. By Rainer Heyink. (Weiner Veröffentlichungen zur Musikwissenschaft, 44.) Tutzing: Schneider, 2010. [vi, 559 p. ISBN-13 9783795212995. €80.]
  • Focus: Music, Nationalism, and the Making of the New Europe. By Philip V. Bohlman. 2nd ed. (Focus on World Music.) New York: Routledge, 2011. [xxxi, 317 p. + 1 CD. ISBN-13 9780415960632, $120 (hbk.); 9780415960649, $44.95 (pbk.).]
  • Den Frieden Komponieren? Ein Symposium zur musikalischen Friedensforschung, Bremen, 16. bis 18. Januar 2009. Edited by Hartmut Lück and Dieter Senghaas. (Edition Neue Zeitschrift für Musik.) Mainz: Schott, 2010. [127 p. ISBN-13 9783795707262. €16.95.]
  • Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution. By Sara Marcus. New York: HarperPerennial, 2010. [viii, 367 p. ISBN-13 9780061806360. $14.99.]
  • Hip Hop Desis: South Asian Americans, Blackness, and a Global Race Consciousness. By Nitasha Tamar Sharma. (Refiguring American Music.) Durham: Duke University Press, 2010. [xiv, 351 p. ISBN-13: 9780822347415, $84.95 (hbk.); 9780822347606, $23.95 (pbk.).]
  • Indian Blues: American Indians and the Politics of Music, 1879-1934. By John W. Troutman. (New Directions in Native American Studies, 3.) Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009. [xvi, 323 p. ISBN-13 9780806140193. $34.95.]
  • Jazz et société sous l’Occupation. By Gérard Régnier. (Logiques sociales; Musiques et champ social.) Paris: L’Harmattan, 2009. [295 p. ISBN-13 9782296101340. €28.]
  • Jim Crow's Counterculture: The Blues and Black Southerners, 1890-1945. By R. A. Lawson. (Making the Modern South.) Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010. [xiii, 275 p. ISBN-13 9780807136805, $45 (hbk.); 9780807138106, price varies (e-book).]
  • Lénine, Staline et la musique: Musée de la musique, 12 octobre 2010-16 janvier 2011. Paris: Fayard; Cité de la musique, 2010. Exhibition catalog. [255 p. ISBN-13 9782213655666. €39.]
  • Mande Popular Music and Cultural Politics in West Africa: Griots and Government Policy since Independence. By Graeme Counsel. Saarbrucken: VDM Verlag, 2009. [v, 290 p. ISBN-13 9783639153057. €79.]
  • Maramao perché sei morto: La Seconda Guerra mondiale nelle canzoni. By Alessandro Crocco. (Altre storie, 10.) Bari: Palomar, 2010. [127 p. ISBN-13 9788876002762. €16.]
  • Mashed Up: Music, Technology, and the Rise of Configurable Culture. By Aram Sinnreich. (Science/Technology/Culture.) Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010. [xxii, 241 p. ISBN-13 9781558498280, $80 (hbk.); 9781558498297, $24.95 (pbk.).]
  • MC5: Sonically Speaking: A Tale of Revolution and Rock ‘n’ Roll. By Brett Callwood. (Painted Turtle Book.) Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2010. [x, 231 p. ISBN-13 9780814334850, $19.95.]
  • Mieczyslaw Weinberg: In Search of Freedom. By David Fanning. Hofheim: Wolke, 2010. [220 p. ISBN-13 9783936000917. €29.]
  • Most Musical Nation: Jews and Culture in the Late Russian Empire. By James Loeffler. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. [xi, 274 p. ISBN-13 9780300137132. $55.]
  • Music and Conflict. Edited by John Morgan O'Connell and Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010. [viii, 289 p. ISBN-13 9780252035456, $80 (hbk.); 9780252077388, $30 (pbk.).]
  • Musik in Gesellschaft und Politik: Ausgewählte Aspekte in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Edited by Georg Brunner. Hamburg: Kovac, 2010. (Schriftenreihe Studien zur Musikwissenschaft, 20.) [126 p. ISBN-13 9783830051619. €58.]
  • Musikwissenschaft und Kalter Krieg: Das Beispiel DDR. Edited by Nina Noeske and Matthias Tischer. (KlangZeiten: Musik, Politik und Gesellschaft, 7.) Cologne: Böhlau, 2010. [195 p. ISBN-13 9783412-205867. €39.90.]
  • Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824. By Harvey Sachs. New York: Random House, 2010. [225 p. ISBN-13 9781400060771. $26.]
  • Il nostro canto libero: Il neofascismo e la musica alternativa: Lotta politica e conflitto generazionale negli anni di piombo. By Cristina Di Giorgio and Ippolito Edmondo Ferrario. Rome: Castelvecchi, 2010. [293 p. ISBN-13 9788876154157. €22.]
  • Opera, Power, and Ideology: Anthropological Study of a National Art in Slovenia. By Vlado Kotnik. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2010. [210 p. ISBN-13 9783631596289. $50.95.]
  • Die Politische Theorie in der Neuen Musik: Karl Amadeus Hartmann und Hannah Arendt. By Raphael Woebs. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2010. [161 p. ISBN-13 9783770549368. €24.90.]
  • Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in Eighteenth-Century Paris. By Robert Darnton. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010. [vi, 224 p. ISBN-13 9780674057159. $25.95.]
  • Popular Is Not Enough: The Political Voice of Joan Baez: A Case Study in the Biographical Method. By Markus Jäger. Stuttgart: Ibidem Verlag, 2010. [227 p. ISBN-13 9783838201061. €34.90.]
  • Potenziale der Musik als strategisches Instrument auswärtiger Kultur- und Bildungspolitik am Beispiel der deutsch-indischen Beziehungen. By Daniel Jan Ittstein. Marburg: Tectum, 2009. [250 p. ISBN-13 9783828899766. €24.90.]
  • Quand le rap sort de sa bulle: Sociologie politique d’un succés populaire. By Denis-Constant Martin et al. (Musique et société.) Paris: Centre information & ressources pour les musiques actuelles, 2010. [188 p. ISBN-13 9782916668284. €18.]
  • Reds, Whites, and Blues: Social Movements, Folk Music, and Race in the United States. By William G. Roy. (Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology.) Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010. [xii, 286 p. 9780691143637. $35.]
  • The Republic of Love: Cultural Intimacy in Turkish Popular Music. By Martin Stokes. (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology.) Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. [xviii, 219 p. ISBN-13 9780226775050, $85 (hbk.); 9780226775067, $29 (pbk.).]
  • Song of the North Country: A Midwest Framework to the Songs of Bob Dylan. By David Pichaske. New York: Continuum, 2010. [xxiii, 360 p. ISBN-13 9781441142320, $80 (hbk.); 9781441197665, $24.95 (pbk.).]
  • Soul of Beijing Opera: Theatrical Creativity and Continuity in the Changing World. By Li Ruru. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Press, 2010. [xvi, 335 p. ISBN-13 9789622099944, $55 (hbk.); 9789622099951, $28 (pbk.).]
  • Sounds of the Borderland: Popular Music, War, and Nationalism in Croatia since 1991. By Catherine Baker. (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series.) Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2010. [xi, 266 p. ISBN-13 9781409403371. $99.95.]
  • South Pacific: Paradise Rewritten. By Jim Lovensheimer. (Broadway Legacies.) New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. [xvii, 266 p. ISBN-13 9780195377026. $27.95.]
  • Time and Memory in Reggae Music: The Politics of Hope. (Music and Society.) By Sarah Daynes. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2010. [xii, 296 p. ISBN-13 9780719076213. $85.]
  • Uum Kulthūm: Artistic Agency and the Shaping of an Arab Legend, 1967-2007. By Laura Lohman. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2010. [xi, 229 p. ISBN-13 9780819570710. $40.]
  • Verdi and the Germans: From Unification to the Third Reich. By Gundula Kreuzer. (New Perspectives in Music History and Criticism, 26.) Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010. [xix, 362 p. ISBN-13 9780521519199. $95.]
  • Women, the Recited Qur'an, and Islamic Music in Indonesia. By Anne K. Rasmussen. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. [xx, 312 p. ISBN-13 9780520255487, $65 (hbk.); 9780520255494, $29.95 (pbk.).]
  • Work and Sing: A History of Occupational and Labor Union Songs in the United States. By Ronald D. Cohen. Crockett, CA: Carquinez Press, 2010. [ix, 190 p. ISBN-13 9780974412481. $24.95.]