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.