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Soundtrack of Conflict CoverThe Soundtrack of Conflict: The Role of Music in Radio Broadcasting in Wartime and in Conflict Situations (Olms, 2013). Since the early twentieth century, radio has been one of the most important media both generally and in the specific context of armed conflict. Relatively cheap and with the ability to transmit over long ranges – and over international borders – radio has become central to the wartime strategies of governments and guerrilla groups alike. The role of music on radio in wartime and in conflict situations has, however, only rarely been the focus of scholarly attention, despite the central role that music plays in this medium.

The essays in this co-edited volume offer case studies that explore the many important roles that music broadcast on radio can play in wartime and in conflict situations – as a means of information (and misinformation), as a communication medium by those separated by and yet connected through the fighting, and as an aid to managing the complex emotions that are experienced. Moreover, the essays demonstrate that music is not just a soundtrack to conflict, but can also influence the very course that a conflict takes. In the range of examples discussed and the theoretical issues raised, the volume presents a significant contribution to the musicological study of war and conflict.

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Book contents:

  • Introduction, M. J. Grant and Férdia J. Stone-Davis
  • Music in Radio Broadcasts in the Gulag, Inna Klause
  • Defining a European ‘New Order’ through Music: Ancient Music in Italian Radio Broad-casting during the Fascist Period, Mauro Fosco Bertola
  • Music on the Airwaves in Occupied France, Karine le Bail
  • Jazz, World War II Radio Propaganda and the Case of Tokyo Rose, Katherine A. Baber
  • Music in Greek Radio Broadcasting in Wartime (1940–1950): Complicity and Resistance, Elli Charamis
  • Propaganda and Music: Greek and Yugoslav Public Radio in the 1940s and 1950s, Vlasis Vlasidis
  • Henry Cowell and the Development of Iranian State Radio for the United States Information Agency, Peter Schimpf
  • Radio Freedom, Songs of Freedom and the Liberation Struggle in South Africa (1963–1991), Sekibakiba Peter Lekgoathi
  • The Free Voice of China: Pirate Radio Broadcasts of Teresa Teng from Taiwan and Hong Kong during the Cold War in Asia, Chen-Ching Cheng
  • Integration or Separation? A Story of Radio and Music in Fiji, Ruth Finnegan
  • Radio and Music in the Last Months of the Eelam War in Sri Lanka, Pradeep N’ Weerasinghe
  • Broadcasting and the Musicology of War: The Case of Sierra Leone, Paul Richards
  • Martial Music at Dawn: Introit for Coups d’État, Oluwafemi Alexander Ladapo
  • The Musicology of Justice: Simon Bikindi and Incitement to Genocide at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, James Parker
  • Sonic Consumerism and Audience Manufacture in US Music Broadcasts to the Middle East, Beau Bothwell