Like all fields of creative endeavour, music has long been caught up - voluntarily and otherwise - in matters political. Music has been used and abused, claimed and disowned, for propaganda purposes, as a vehicle for protest, as a means of articulating national, racial and sexual identities, and in the name of religious, courtly, party political and commercial imperatives. Scholarly interest in the political dimensions of music and music making has increased greatly in recent decades to the point where a consolidated overview has become indispensable to furthering our understanding of the forces at play. This timely four volume series brings together classic essays addressing the intersection of music and politics, in the broad sense of the word, written by leading international scholars over the past few decades. The essays, which encompass art and vernacular musics in western and non-western cultures, ancient and modern, are grouped together under the headings of patronage, ideology, protest and identity politics. Each volume is edited by a recognized authority in their field and includes a select bibliography and an introduction which offers an authoritative overview of research in the area. This four-volume series offers a significant benefit to students, lecturers and libraries as it brings together leading articles in the field from disparate journals which are often difficult to locate and of limited access. Students are thus able to study leading articles side by side for comparison whilst lecturers are provided with an invaluable ’one-stop’ teaching resource.
