Music and Postwar Transitions in the 19th and 20th Centuries

From the Napoleonic Wars to the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda, via the great world conflicts of the 20th century, Music and Postwar Transitions in the 19th and 20th Centuries is the first book to highlight the significance of ‘postwar transitions’ in the field of music and to demonstrate the influence that musicians, composers, critics, institutions, and publics have had on the period that follows conflict. Leading historians, political scientists, psychologists and musicologists explore the roles of music and culture in demobilization, reconstruction, memory, reconciliation, revenge, and nationalist backlash. Moving beyond the popular conception of music as an agent of peace, this study reveals music’s more complex and ambivalent role in the process of transition from war to peace.

Anaïs Fléchet is Associate professor in International History at the University Paris-Saclay, and member of the research team Centre d’histoire culturelle des sociétés contemporaines. Her research focuses on music, international history, Brazil and the Global South.

Martin Guerpin is Assistant professor in Musicology at Paris-Saclay University. His research focuses on the relations between art and popular music, the relationship between music and identities (XIXth XXIth centuries), and musical life in casinos.

Philippe Gumplowicz is Emeritus Professor at the University Paris-Saclay. He previously served as the Head of the Department of Langues Arts Musique and Director of the School of Humanities at University Paris-Saclay.

Barbara L. Kelly is Professor of Music and Head of the School of Music at the University of Leeds. From 2015 to 2022 she was Director of Research and Professor of Musicology at the Royal Northern College of Music. She is also President of the Royal Musical Association (2021-24) and was elected to the Academia Europaea in 2020.