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Music, Nationalism, and the Making of the New Europe. By Philip V. Bohlman. (Focus on World Music Series) 2nd edition. New York; London: Routledge, 2011. [xxxi, 320 pages. ISBN: 978-0-41-596063-2 (hbk) US$120/£75.00. ISBN: 978-0-41-596064-9 (pbk) US $44.95/£27.99. ISBN:978-0-20-384449-6 (ebk) US$44.95/£27.99]
Philip Bohlman's Music, Nationalism, and the Making of the New Europe first appeared in 2004, as one of five volumes in ABC-CLIO's World Music Series. Routledge has now picked up these titles, offering revised texts and new volumes aimed primarily at the academic market. As series editor Michael B. Bakan writes, these books are intended to fill "a conspicuous gap" in the rapidly growing ethnomusicology and world music literature (p.xiv). The series aims to "balance sound pedagogy with exemplary scholarship," with each volume being "substantive in content yet readily accessible to specialist and non-specialist readers alike" (p. xv). The authors are all well-known ethnomusicologists. Five of the six titles currently available focus on specific cultures: Music of Northeast Brazil, Afro-Caribbean Music, Music of South Africa, Gamelan Music of Indonesia, and Irish Traditional Music. Philip Bohlman's contribution is the exception, encompassing an entire continent and vast range of musics.
The "New Europe" Bohlman's title refers to is the Europe that has emerged and evolved since the events of 1989. The title reflects the author's exploration of the ways in which music and nationalism have shaped this newly-imagined continent historically, in recent decades, and...