'World music' emerged as an invention of the West from encounters with other cultures. This book draws readers into a remarkable range of these historical encounters, in which music had the power to evoke the exotic and to give voice to the voiceless. In the course of the volume's eight chapters the reader witnesses music's involvement in the modern world, but also the individual moments and particular histories that are crucial to an understanding of music's diversity. World Music is wide-ranging in its geographical scope, yet individual chapters provide in-depth treatments of selected music cultures and regional music histories. The book frequently zooms in on repertoires and musicians - such as Bob Marley, Bartok, and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - and attempts to account for world music's growing presence and popularity at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Table of Contents

1. In the Beginning: Myth, Nature, and the Origins of Music; 2. The West and the World; 3. Between Myth and History, Between Europe and Its Others; 4. Music of the Folk; 5. Old-Time Religion; 6. Music of the Nations; 7. Diaspora; 8. Colonial Musics, Post-Colonial Worlds, and the Globalization of Worldbeat; MEDIA AND MEDIATION OF WORLD MUSIC: A TIMELINE OF MUSIC TECHNOLOGIES; WORLD-MUSIC RESOURCES; GLOSSARY OF WORLD-MUSIC GENRES; GLOSSARY OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGICAL TERMS