Bombs Bursting in Air
Music and the State
Explorations of the harmonies and dissonance between music and the American polity
Description
Contributions by Franz Andres Morrissey, Mat Callahan, Suzanne G. Cusick, James E. Dillard, Steven Garabedian, Jim Rogers, Elissa Stroman, Britta Sweers, and Dick Weissman
What exactly is American music? Is blackface minstrelsy American music? Is Hawaiian music? Is “The Star-Spangled Banner,” written by an Englishman, American music? And what exactly is “Rockin’ in the Free World”? Why does the Voice of America use jazz music to promote America? These and many other questions are discussed in Bombs Bursting in Air: Music and the State.
The relationship between music and the state has been the topic of controversy for at least 2,500 years. The oft-quoted passage from Plato’s Republic, “the musical modes are never changed without changes in the most basic of the City’s laws,” not only underscores the importance of music in general but warns of music’s ability to affect how society is governed. The state must therefore employ music to serve its ends while at the same time guarding against the lawlessness and subversion music is capable of introducing.
Bombs Bursting in Air gathers contributions from historians and musicologists to explore the role of music in the history of the United States. The essayists exhume music that has been forgotten or deliberately buried while drawing comparison with what has been promoted as “American music” by the academy, the music industry, and journalism, as well as by the US State Department.
Reviews
"This book is a valuable resource for anyone involved with music. It will enrich the experience of all music lovers by sensitizing them to the full range of human experience, including the economic and political conditions, out of which the works that inspire them have emerged."
- Victor Wallis, professor of liberal arts and sciences at Berklee College of Music
"How does music intersect with the state? On so many levels and in so many ways. The authors in this book come at it from many angles, encompassing history, musicology, sociology, and political economy. Such is its complexity that music can be a force for both incorporation and resistance. Not only that, but the same music can sometimes be an instrument for both control and protest. This book is seriously thought-provoking. No one could read it and not find their understanding enhanced."
- Helena Sheehan, emeritus professor at Dublin City University and author of Navigating the Zeitgeist: A Story of the Cold War, the New Left, Irish Republicanism, and International Communism and Until We Fall: Long Distance Life on the Left