Instrument of War: Music and The Making of America’s Soldiers

Music has been part of waging war since time immemorial, but its significance has rarely received serious critical scrutiny. Drawing on his recent book Instrument of War: Music and the Making of America’s Soldiers, David Suisman will trace how the American military used—and continues to use—music to train soldiers and regulate military life, and how soldiers themselves have turned to music to cope with war’s emotional and psychological strains. From boot camp to the battlefield, from brass bands to iPods, music has coursed through American war-making from the Civil War to the twenty-first century. This talk will illuminate the ways music has functioned as a lubricant in the American war machine. About the speaker: David Suisman is associate professor of history at the University of Delaware specializing in cultural history, war and society, and the history of capitalism. He is the author of Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music (Harvard University Press, 2009), recipient of numerous awards and honors, and the just-published Instrument of War: Music and the Making of America’s Soldiers (University of Chicago Press, 2024). His other books include two co-edited volumes, Capitalism and the Senses (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023) and Sound in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010). His articles have appeared in the Journal of American History, Social Text, Radical History Review, Journal of Social History, and other publications. From 2009 to 2020, he was coordinator of the Hagley Program in the History of Capitalism, Technology, and Culture.