Introduction

This book traces the operations of power-social, economic, and political-through the medium of music and through discourses about music. None of the authors makes a claim for the power of music itself to persuade, coerce, resist, or suppress; rather, they address the uses to which music is put, the controls placed on it, and discursive treatments of it. Guiding these investigations through a variety of historical and cultural contexts are the theories of Gramsci, Adorno, Foucault, Baudrillard, and Attali; indeed, the volume could be viewed as a set of case studies based on these scholars’ theories.