Bringing together scholars from the fields of musicology and international history, this book investigates the significance of music to foreign relations, and how it affected the interaction of nations since the late 19th century. For more than a century, both state and non-state actors have sought to employ sound and harmony to influence allies and enemies, resolve conflicts, and export their own culture around the world. This book asks how we can understand music as an instrument of power and influence, and how the cultural encounters fostered by music changes our ideas about international history.

Jessica C. E. Gienow-Hecht is Chair of the Department of History at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin and Alfred Grosser Chair at Sciences Po in Paris. She is the series editor of “Explorations in Culture and International History” (Berghahn Books) and her book Transmission Impossible: American Journalism as Cultural Diplomacy in Postwar Germany (1999) won the Stuart Bernath Prize and the Myrna Bernath Prize of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. Her most recent monograph, Sound Diplomacy: Music and Emotions in Transatlantic Relations, 1850-1920 (2009, 2012 paperback) won the Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award and is currently being translated into Chinese. In 2017, Gienow-Hecht won a grant from the German Research Association to pursue a research on a project titled “The Quest for Harmony: Classical Music, Emotion, and the Discourse on Human Rights in the United States since World War II”. 

“What is interesting about this book? First, each chapter focuses on one genre of music—classical music…Second, this book highlights the benefits of music in the study of international history… This kind of aesthetics is less studied because of its seemingly apolitical nature. This book shows that music is not the “dessert,” but “the meat and the potatoes” (Buzzanco [2000], quoted by Fosler-Lussier, 119). In short, it nourishes our understanding of international history. IR scholars, especially rationalists or structural realists of IR, should read Music and International History in the Twentieth Century.” · International Dialogue, A Multidisciplinary Journal of World Affairs

“Knowledgeably compiled and deftly edited,... Music and International History in the Twentieth Century is the seventh volume in the outstanding Berghahn Books Explorations in Culture and International History series…a seminal work of collective scholarship that should be a part of every professional and academic library 20th Century Music History reference collection and supplemental studies reading list.” · Midwest Book Review

“Jessica Gienow Hecht…has immersed herself in the study of classical music and examined its history in the modern international context. But the excellent contributions to this volume suggest that she is not alone.” · Akira Iriye, Harvard University

“…this is a valuable, thought-provoking anthology that is a strong addition to the burgeoning literature on culture and foreign relations.” · Laura Belmonte, Oklahoma State University