Progressive and libertarian, anti-Communist and revolutionary, Democratic and Republican, quintessentially American but simultaneously universal. By the late 1980s, rock music had acquired a dizzying array of political labels. These claims about its political significance shared one common thread: that the music could set you free. Rocking in the Free World explains how Americans came to believe they had learned the truth about rock 'n' roll, a truth shaped by the Cold War anxieties of the Fifties, the countercultural revolutions (and counter-revolutions) of the Sixties and Seventies, and the end-of-history triumphalism of the Eighties. How did rock 'n' roll become enmeshed with so many different competing ideas about freedom? And what does that story reveal about the promise-and the limits-of rock music as a political force in postwar America?

About the Author
Nicholas Tochka writes about the politics of postwar music-making in Eastern Europe and the Americas. In 2016, Oxford University Press published his first book, Audible States: Socialist Politics and Popular Music in Socialist Albania. He is currently completing one project on citizenship in postsocialist Europe, and another about the invention of the Sixties in the United States. He works at the Conservatorium of Music, the University of Melbourne in Australia, and plays both bass and guitar.

Reviews
Rocking in the Free World invites the reader to re-assess the mythical stories we tell about rock 'n' roll, freedom, and rebellion-and to see more accurately rock's artistic, social, and political impacts. Warmly recommended. * Danielle Fosler-Lussier, author of Music in America's Cold War Diplomacy *
In Rocking in the Free World, Tochka (Conservatorium of Music, Univ. of Melbourne, Australia) discusses aspects of the evolution of the rock-and-roll style from its roots in the 1950s to the end of the 1980s...Recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals. * Choice *
This book will be useful for those seeking to understand rock's position within the wider political landscape of its time, as well as how politics informed the public's perception of the music. * Brian F. Wright, Notes: the Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association. *
Tochka's Rocking in the Free World such a worthwhile read. * Benjamin Duke, EJAS Book Review *


Awards
Winner of Certificate of Merit, Best Historical Research in Recorded Classical Music.



Book Information
ISBN 9780197566510
Author Nicholas Tochka
Format Hardback
Page Count 248
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 490g
Dimensions(mm) 165mm * 236mm * 24mm