Music
A Subversive History
Basic Books · Print & ebook · April 20, 2021
"A dauntingly ambitious, obsessively researched" (Los Angeles Times) global history of music that reveals how songs have shifted societies and sparked revolutions.
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- Who it’s for
- A brisk, cultural-history lens on music’s restless place in modern life.
- Genres
- Music History, Music & Society, Ethnomusicology
- Published
- Basic Books, April 20, 2021
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Start with this bookAbout this book
"A dauntingly ambitious, obsessively researched" (Los Angeles Times) global history of music that reveals how songs have shifted societies and sparked revolutions. Histories of music overwhelmingly suppress stories of the outsiders and rebels who created musical revolutions and instead celebrate the mainstream assimilators who borrowed innovations, diluted their impact, and disguised their sources.
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In Music: A Subversive History, Ted Gioia reclaims the story of music for the riffraff, insurgents, and provocateurs. Gioia tells a four-thousand-year history of music as a global source of power, change, and upheaval. He shows how outcasts, immigrants, slaves, and others at the margins of society have repeatedly served as trailblazers of musical expression, reinventing our most cherished songs from ancient times all the way to the jazz, reggae, and hip-hop sounds of the current day. Music: A Subversive History is essential reading for anyone interested in the meaning of music, from Sappho to the Sex Pistols to Spotify.
Why It Lands
A brisk, cultural-history lens on music’s restless place in modern life.
Come here for
- music, history, and the business side in one sweep
- a serious, layered take that still reads like a story
Expect
- insight over trivia
- conversation-ready framing
Where it sits
| Music History | 90% |
|---|---|
| Music & Society | 38% |
| Ethnomusicology | 35% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Ancient Greece
- 20th-Century Britain
- Social History
- Music History
Show all 5 publisher categories
- Jazz
- Authors
- Ted Gioia, Jamie Renell, Basic Books
- Publisher
- Basic Books
- Published
- April 20, 2021
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Reading lane
- Ancient Greece