Music and international history in the twentieth century

Bringing together scholars from the fields of musicology and international history, this book investigates the significance of music to foreign relations, and how it affected the interaction of nations since the late 19th century. For more than a century, both state and non-state actors have sought to employ sound and harmony to influence allies and enemies, resolve conflicts, and export their own culture around the world. This book asks how we can understand music as an instrument of power and influence, and how the cultural encounters fostered by music changes our ideas about international history.

Introduction: Sonic history, or, Why music matters in International history / Jessica C. E. Gienow-Hecht -- Part I: Music, international relations and the absence of the state. The wicked Barrisons / David Monod. The International Society for Contemporary Music and its political context (Prague 1935) / Anne C. Shreffler -- Part II: Music, international history, and the state. Music and international relations in occupied Germany, 1945-49 / Toby Thacker. Instruments of diplomacy : writing music into the history of Cold War international relations / Danielle Fosler-Lussier. "To reach... into the hearts and minds of our friends" : America's symphonic tours and the Cold War / Jonathan Rosenberg. Music diplomacy in an emergency: Eisenhower's "secret weapon," Iceland, 1954-59 / Emily Abrams Ansari. Intimate histories of the musical Cold War : Fred Prieberg and Igor Blazhkov's unofficial diplomacy / Peter J. Schmelz. "Where I cannot roam, my song will take wing": Polish cultural promotion in Belarus, 1988 / Andrea F. Bohlman.