Music and Politics: A Critical Introduction

This book is not about music or politics. It is about the ‘and’ that binds them together. How do these fields intersect and exercise effects on each other, and what theories and approaches can help us understand their interactions? How have the relationships between music and politics changed over time and across cultures, and are the familiar tools we use in dealing with them fit for purpose? Music and Politics: A Critical Introduction overhauls our understanding of how these fields interact, offering a rigorous reappraisal of key concepts such as power, protest, resistance, subversion, propaganda and ideology. It explores and evaluates a wide range of perspectives from contemporary political theory, engaging with a broad array of musical cultures and practices from medieval chant to rap. In addition, it discusses the ways in which the relationships between music and politics are being reconfigured and reconceptualised in the present.