The book presents a nuanced interpretation of Americanism and the cultural politics of the state, and in this Ansari does a great job in telling a story through her exploration of the six composers that are featured. However, Ansari still provides space for variation, rather than employing a singular conceptual model for understanding the subject. An abundance of recent publications has explored Cold War politics and their cultural implications, and many of them have
explored music in particular, but The Sound of a Superpower stands out as a comprehensive and focused study of Americanism. * Asya Draganova, Popular Music History Journal * Ansari presents a combination of musical theory and political and social action. She supports the text with excellent documentation, a variety of musical examples, and photographs and illustrations ... Highly recommended. * R. D. Johnson, CHOICE * there is much information to learn and digest thanks to Ansari's broad archival work and her shrewd analyses of her sources. An engaging read with a clear point of view, The Sound of a Superpower is important for anyone studying the Cold War, mid-twentieth-century concert music, or American cultural diplomacy * Jennifer DeLapp-Birkett, Binghamton University, New York, Transposition: Musique et Sciences Sociales * The Sound of a Superpower: Musical Americanism and the Cold War by Emily Abrams Ansari is a provocative, accessible re-evaluation of six well-known and influential American symphonic composers whose careers intersected with Cold War politics...there is much information to learn and digest thanks to Ansari's broad archival work and her shrewd analyses of her sources. An engaging read with a clear point of view, The Sound of a Superpower is important
for anyone studying the Cold War, mid-twentieth-century concert music, or American cultural diplomacy. * Jennifer DeLapp-Birkett, Transposition. Musique et Sciences Sociales * The Sound of a Superpower is a bracing study of how American classical music, far from an apolitical art, became a Cold War weapon. Thanks to Ansari's meticulous research and engaging storytelling, we have a richer understanding of the relationship between aesthetics and politics during this period of global ideological conflict. This excellent book is a welcome addition to musicology and Cold War studies. * Mark Katz, Professor of Music, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Director of the U.S. State Department's Next Level program * We have long known that the Cold War containment also contained creativity on the U.S. American home front. But as Emily Abrams Ansari shows in this fine study, its mechanism went far deeper than we have hitherto known. The Sound of a Superpower reveals the extent to which anticommunism and the quest for a unified nation challenged and channeled U.S. American composer's efforts to develop a postwar American sound. As international tensions escalated,
composers found it increasingly difficult to reconcile progressive composition with the demands of cultural programs extolling U.S. society's commitment to "high culture". The six artists portrayed in this book reveal the different responses to and, indeed, utilisation of U.S. governmental efforts to seize national
culture in the service of international politics. A must-read for all students of Cold War music. * Jessica Gienow-Hecht, Dept of History, John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universitat Berlin *