ABSTRACT
This chapter helps to study the ways in which music is used as a vehicle for politics and a symbol for nation. People begin by comparing and contrasting anthems and other political music from various nation-states. It explores how 'folk' music was used to promote national solidarity in nineteenth-century Russia and twentieth-century China and Bulgaria. Then the time and study how the German composer Ludwig van Beethoven envisioned universal brotherhood in his Symphony No. 9 in D minor. Political scientists use the term 'nation-state' to characterize sovereign entities that combine a high level of ethnic and cultural unity with a viable political system. In the history of human culture, however, the nation-state is a relatively new idea, arguably dating from the late eighteenth century. The chapter concludes with a look at the use of music in the ongoing Zapatista revolutionary movement in Chiapas, Mexico.
