Scholars of American music have long and painstakingly contemplated how most effectively to express the dynamics, distinctions, and nuances of such a vast repertoire. In his foreword to Gilbert Chase's 1987 edition of America's Music, Richard Crawford cites Chase's earlier commentary on the writing of music history. Chase, Crawford states, “[O]bserved that historians of music have generally taken a ‘diachronic’ view of time, which considers phenomena sequentially, in the order in which events in their development have occurred.” This approach, according to Chase, was effective in tracing the history of a single idiom. However, “where two or more equally important kinds of music do coexist, time is better thought of spatially or ‘synchronically,’. . . juxtaposing accounts of many different musics, just as they live side by side in real life.”Footnote ¹ Embracing the challenge of writing a “highly variegated” account of American music, Richard Crawford and Larry Hamberlin give us a second, reconfigured edition of Crawford's textbook, An Introduction to America's Music. Departing from the chronological narrative employed in the first edition, the second edition, although roughly sequential, adopts a more holistic approach. Categories such as classical, popular, and folk/traditional are treated less rigidly. Crawford and Hamberlin expand on Crawford's well-known interest in the broader, dynamic context of music-making that encompasses performers, teachers, audiences, and the music business. Giving inclusive consideration to the interaction of these elements tests the bounds of a century-by-century template. Thus, the larger sections of the current edition are envisioned and titled according to acts of human engagement, specifically employing war as a benchmark of social and cultural change. In this malleable framework the authors “probe the boundaries drawn to separate different types of music and, by implication, different groups of listeners from each other” and argue convincingly for the interconnectedness of “music and the life that surrounds it” (xvii).

Part 1, America's Music from Colonization through the Civil War, encompasses a period often defined by its disparity. Yet, out of the conflict and tumult that emanated in waves across this era, Crawford and Hamberlin depict continuity and community through musical expression. Drawing upon the writings of European explorers and settlers, the authors employ the construct of colonization to establish the theme of cultural intersection, explaining that Catholic traditions brought to North America by the Spanish and French inculcated indigenous people in the South and Southwest and North and Midwest, respectively, while Protestant settlers brought their religious convictions and musical traditions to the eastern seaboard. The absence in this section of an opening chapter devoted to Native America immediately illustrates an important difference in approach between the first and the second editions of this survey of American music. The music of Native Americans is not isolated but integrated throughout the entire volume. Initially characterized in chapter 1 through the writings of early colonials, American Indian music resurfaces elsewhere (chapters 8, 9, and 21), thus depicting itself as a persistent voice, at once traditional and contemporary, as witnessed in the blending of different Native traditions in pantribalism.

Crawford and Hamberlin assert that the story of American music-making is closely bound to a vigorous music business. Part 2, America's Music from the Civil War through World War I, examines various connections between the burgeoning economy of an industrial nation and the growth of music commerce in the United States. Sheet music, phonograph recordings, piano rolls—tangibles of the business then, but far removed from twenty-first century students—are made more palpable by the generous number of photographs, prints, and sidebars supplementing the narrative throughout the book.

The blues is a common thread woven throughout part 3, America's Music from World War I through World War II, informing the discussion of country music, vocal genres, jazz, and the classical milieu alike. From the blues, a music created in the poorest region of the country, the rural south, developed distinct expressions of musical identity. The story of this transformation comes to life through the poignancy and authenticity of the utterances of those most intimately tied to it. Sidebars entitled “In Their Own Words,” found throughout the volume, cite, for example, Johnny Shines reflecting on the personality of his friend and fellow blues musician Robert Johnson. Woody Guthrie explains his philosophy of song, and Alan Lomax comments on the duty of the folklorist to speak for the common people.

Part 4, America's Music Since World War II, addresses the period's increasingly diverse array of musical expression and how it is affected by a mediated world and rapidly developing digital technologies. Among the most engaging sections in part 4 examines connections and conundrums that emerge from musics whose consequences have not been entirely realized. Authors of textbooks dealing with more recent musics, particularly popular music, often revert to lists of disparate styles but give little attention to overarching themes. That is not the case here. With emphasis on social and cultural engagement, Crawford and Hamberlin pull together in chapter 18, “America's Music in the 1960s,” the music of John Coltrane, Steve Reich, the Beatles, James Brown, and others. Grouped together under the title “Questioning Authority,” they all “reflect in one way or another the tumultuous society in which they flourished”—despite the different sounds of jazz, classical, popular, soul, and country music (440). Looking at later musics, chapter 22 invites further dialogue about issues both artistic and commercial. Is jazz now America's classical music? How should the music industry respond to a market in which technology is perpetually changing?

Beyond adept storytelling, one of the greatest strengths of this volume is its focus on critical listening. A notable addition to this second publication is the section entitled “Talking about Music,” which establishes a rudimentary technical vocabulary that serves both as common ground for students and as a point of departure for discussion of the eighty-eight listening examples that follow. In addition, for each audio recording, the second edition provides a listening guide with basic information including date of composition or recording, composer or performers, genre, meter, and form. Guided listening is prompted by “What to Listen For” suggestions, and timings highlight formal divisions and significant musical events. Each listening guide elicits further consideration of the music with “listen and reflect” questions. For example, a question posed in the guide for William Grant Still's Afro-American Symphony reads, “The epigraphy of Dunbar uses black dialect, a literary device that presents an obstacle for many present-day readers, for whom such language suggests offensive stereotypes. Can any parallels be drawn between the language of Dunbar's poem and the musical language of Still's symphony?” (327) The expanded listening package includes a four-CD set, which is also streamed online.

Readers will not find a significant difference in the fundamental content of the two editions. The material is apt and well chosen, the scholarship unfaltering. The discussion of the most recent developments in American music has, of course, been expanded. Rather than changing what is covered, it is the approach to the story of music in the United States that has been artfully modified in the second edition. By eschewing traditional categories and boundaries, Crawford and Hamberlin align their pedagogy with what curriculum theorists Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe call “uncoverage.”Footnote ² Uncoverage is the opposite of simply covering the content; instead, it emphasizes developing the skills of inquiry and analysis. Lendol Calder, a professor of American history writes, “Survey instructors should aim to uncover history. We should design [learning] environments that expose the very things hidden away by traditional survey instruction: the linchpin ideas of historical inquiry that are not obvious or easily comprehended.”Footnote ³ Crawford and Hamberlin challenge readers to experience American music in this way, letting the rich juxtapositions prompt the questions which ultimately uncover its meaning within the historical and cultural context.