Music has been part of war since time immemorial, but the relationship between music-making and war-making remains little understood. This talk traces how the U.S. military used--and continues to use--music to train soldiers and regulate military life from the Civil War to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how soldiers themselves have turned to music to cope with war’s emotional and psychological strains. Drawing on his recent book Instrument of War: Music and the Making of America’s Soldiers, David Suisman links together a wide range of musical practices, from boot camp to the battlefield, uncovering the surprising history of how music has enabled more than a century and a half of state violence.
David Suisman is professor of history at the University of Delaware specializing in cultural history, the history of music, sound studies, war and society, and the history of capitalism. His books include Instrument of War: Music and the Making of America’s Soldiers (University of Chicago Press, 2024), Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music (Harvard University Press, 2009), and, as co-editor, Capitalism and the Senses (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023) and Sound in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010). A sometime disc jockey at freeform radio station WFMU, he lives in Philadelphia.
