Red Songbook – Reds, Whites, and Blues

"Social movement scholars have slowly begun to explore the rich topic of culture and contention.

With this wonderful book, Roy breaks important new ground by looking beyond the culture of a given movement to investigate the social relations by which movements do culture and with what effects. The argument he puts forward, from examining the Old Left and civil rights movement, is both convincing and important.”
Doug McAdam, Stanford University.

"In this revealing and incisive book, Roy shows how folk music inhabited two transformative moments of American social history in very different ways.

Turning from how movements emerge to what they do, he demonstrates how music both reflects and reshapes the relations between movement leaders and militants.

Some movements, his book shows, use music as a weapon of propaganda; others as a means of creating solidarity.

Students of movements and American history will never again be able to sideline music as a mere ornament of social movement studies."
Sidney Tarrow, Cornell University.

"This exceptional book provides one of the most grounded sociological accounts of music and its role in social movements to date. Integrating insights from the sociology of culture, music, and organizations with in-depth historical analyses of America folk traditions,

Reds, Whites, and Blues is, both theoretically astute and innovative. It is a must-read, with implications for many specialties in our field.
Vincent Roscigno, Ohio State University.