Nicholas Cook is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge.

"A witty, concise, and far-reaching book about music in a global context."Suddhaseel Sen, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay"A ringing riposte to the assumption that music has little to say about the critical issues of our time. Cook shows us just a few of the countless ways in which music is an indelible aspect of what it means to be human – most crucially, because music teaches us nothing less than how to live."George E. Lewis FBA, Columbia University

• Acknowledgementsor maybe it doesn’t?           music for good or illideology in disguisemusic, race, colonialismafter BLMmusic and asocial individualismmusic, nostalgia, delusionmusic and administered societymusical togethernessmusic, covid, ethicspandemic intimacyNotesFurther Reading

Nicholas Cook is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge.

"A witty, concise, and far-reaching book about music in a global context."Suddhaseel Sen, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay"A ringing riposte to the assumption that music has little to say about the critical issues of our time. Cook shows us just a few of the countless ways in which music is an indelible aspect of what it means to be human – most crucially, because music teaches us nothing less than how to live."George E. Lewis FBA, Columbia University

• Acknowledgementsor maybe it doesn’t?           music for good or illideology in disguisemusic, race, colonialismafter BLMmusic and asocial individualismmusic, nostalgia, delusionmusic and administered societymusical togethernessmusic, covid, ethicspandemic intimacyNotesFurther Reading

Nicholas Cook is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge.

"A witty, concise, and far-reaching book about music in a global context."Suddhaseel Sen, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay"A ringing riposte to the assumption that music has little to say about the critical issues of our time. Cook shows us just a few of the countless ways in which music is an indelible aspect of what it means to be human – most crucially, because music teaches us nothing less than how to live."George E. Lewis FBA, Columbia University

• Acknowledgementsor maybe it doesn’t?           music for good or illideology in disguisemusic, race, colonialismafter BLMmusic and asocial individualismmusic, nostalgia, delusionmusic and administered societymusical togethernessmusic, covid, ethicspandemic intimacyNotesFurther Reading