MOST RECENT BOOK
INSTRUMENT OF WAR: MUSIC AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA’S SOLDIERS
ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thompson Book Prize
Greg Tate Book Prize, International Association for the Study of Popular Music-US
Instrument of War opens our ears to the significance of music in American war-making. In this rich, surprising history, Suisman traces how the U.S. 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 the emotional and psychological traumas of war.
MORE BOOKS
SELLING SOUNDS: THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION IN AMERICAN MUSIC
From Tin Pan Alley to grand opera, player-pianos to phonograph records, Selling Sounds explores the rise of music as big business and the creation of a radically new musical culture in America. This award-winning work maps the growth of the music business across the social landscape—in homes, theaters, department stores, schools—and analyzes the effect of this development on everything from copyright law to the sensory environment.
CO-EDITED BOOKS
CAPITALISM AND THE SENSES
SOUND IN THE AGE OF MECHANICAL REPRODUCTION
This pioneering collection shows how seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching have both shaped and been shaped by commercial interests from the turn of the twentieth century to our own time. Drawing on history, anthropology, geography, and other fields, these essays analyze not only where efforts to shape sensory experience have succeeded but also where the senses have defied the logic of markets. “[An] extremely impressive collection.” — Journal of American History
Sound in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction investigates sound as part of the social construction of historical experience and as an element of the sensory relationship people have to the world, showing how hearing and listening can inform people's feelings, ideas, decisions, and actions. “This collection…is multicultural historical analysis at its best.” — Journal of American History
EVENTS, TALKS, ARTICLES (Upcoming and Recent)
America’s 250 Years of Music & Military Service - a public talk at Salisbury University | Oct 1, 2026 — information HERE
Interview about Jack Mullin, the US Army engineer who brought magnetic tape recording to the US on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s No One Saw It Coming — forthcoming
“‘Waging War Through Sound: Music in the U.S. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq” — Popular Music and Violent Conflict in the 21st Century, a day-long symposium at the University of Liverpool | June 5, 2026 — information HERE
A lively conversation about Instrument of War on Sam Backer’s Money4Nothing podcast — listen HERE
“The Spectacle of Sonic Violence in the US Wars in Vietnam and Iraq” — Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Chicago | March 2026
Popular Music and the State: An Unruly History — International Association for the Study of Popular Music (US), Washington DC | Feb 27, 2026
Instrument of War — Keynote address — Concordia University (Montreal) History Conference | April 4, 2025
Wide-ranging interview about Instrument of War with Mack Hagood for his indispensable sound studies podcast Phantom Power — listen HERE
A great conversation about Instrument of War with Ken Freedman on WFMU’s Techtonic show — listen HERE
Extensive interview about Instrument of War — on New Books Network — listen HERE
Book talk on Instrument of War — Centre for Geopolitics, University of Cambridge — watch HERE
THEMES OF MY WORK
