Since 2002s Grammy award winning and record-breaking The Rising album, Bruce Springsteen's star has been steadily on the rise. Much like Elvis' 1968 Comeback Special or Dylan's mid-1970s return to form with Blood on the Tracks and Desire, this late career renaissance seems to have assured Springsteen's lasting fame and artistic stature; indeed it has elevated him to such heights that he can arguably take his place in this triumvirate of Western popular music icons. The amount of academic and critical work focused on ‘The Boss’ over the last few years testifies to this.

This book, jointly edited by Kenneth Womack, Jerry Zolten and Mark Bernhard, lays claim to being the first collection of academic essays focusing solely on Springsteen as subject, and certainly to my knowledge it is. As the title may suggest, the Cultural Studies nature of the work contained within is vast in scope and multidisciplinary in theory. There are essays by academics from across the range of humanities, from history and literature, to psychology and theology. With such a wide range of authors one might think that the collection would be somewhat chaotic thematically. It is very much to the credit of the editors that, while reading, I was struck by how well the book flowed in that regard. The editors have grouped the 14 essays here into four parts that focus on one theme that fans or students of Springsteen's work would be familiar with: working-class identity, gender identity, religion and spirituality and politics, and ethics and social justice.

The first part, focusing on working-class identities in Springsteen's work, presents four essays that instantly get to the crux of what much of his work is about. The first, by David N. Gellman, entitled ‘Darkness on the edge of town’: Springsteen, Richard Ford, and the American Dream', draws comparisons between the sparse and contemplative Americana of Richard Ford's fiction with the similarly dark and unforgiving landscapes and characters sketched by Springsteen in albums like Darkness and Nebraska. The narratives and icons that both men use purposefully ask questions of both the America it represents and the reader/listener, drawing them into a dialogue about the very nature of Western culture and the American Dream.

This essay links in well with another stand out from the first part of the book that focuses on the connection between the working-class narratives of Woody Guthrie and those of Springsteen. Most fascinating was the line drawn by Donna M. Dolphin in ‘“Believe me, Mister”: the tradition of Woody Guthrie's Hurt Song in Springsteen's The Rising and Devils & Dust’, from Whitman to Guthrie to Dylan to Springsteen. This intertextuality and connecting of cultural dots really gets to the heart of what makes good cultural studies and criticism. The conclusion of the essay seemed rather sudden. After some great work, it was stated that Whitman and Guthrie's work was sexist and Springsteen's work, while progressive in that regard, still struggles under a very male and working-class-centric point of view. I found this conclusion to rely too heavily on presumption, especially about the point of view of the narrators on songs like ‘The Rising’ and ‘You're Missing’. In the final paragraph, Dolphin does admit that ‘Arguably, the points regarding adhesiveness in Springsteen's work are constructed from a heterosexual position with a patriarchal definition of domesticity and work … it would be valuable to make a more complete reading of Springsteen's work, one not limited to The Rising and Devils & Dust’ (p. 59).

This segues nicely into the next part of the book that deals with gender identities in Springsteen's work. Obviously there are contentions as, without being sexist in any form, Springsteen's narratives are very masculine in outlook. Women are seemingly either objects of lust as in the early work, like Thunder Road, or limited to domestic environs in later albums. The most interesting of the gender essays is by Liza Zitelli. Entitled ‘“Come to the door, Ma”: mothers, women and home in Springsteen's Devils & Dust’, Zitelli gives an in-depth, gender studies-informed look at the representation of woman in what is one of Springsteen's most fascinating albums. In some five out of the 12 tracks, the mother is a central character. Zitelli describes the meditation on motherhood here by Springsteen as a trope that: ‘reflects a cultural desire to understand, and perhaps reconnect with, the roots and origins of our identities …’ (p. 80).

The next part of the book focuses on the use of religious imagery in Springsteen's songs. I find that the three essays here struggle form wise and for differing reasons. The first, ‘Bruce Springsteen and the puritan ideal of the Promised Land’ by Spencer L. Allen, is an interesting concept. Springsteen's (lapsed) Catholicism has been widely written about so the argument here would need to be made efficiently. Unfortunately, the arguments in the essay are drowned out in a sea of ecumenical and theological footnotes – 44 in all, in an essay only 18 pages long. Mathew Orel's essay, ‘From Adam to Jesus: Springsteen's use of scripture’ could be a PhD-length study and so struggles in such a short form.

Scott Wagar's ‘Life right now: Springsteen and spirituality’ is a far more entertaining read and I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly with his affirmation that in Springsteen's best work, spirituality and soul, as opposed to religion, is advocated as the way forward for America, and humanity, in these uncertain times. Similar conclusions are drawn from the final section of the book, ‘“It's hard to be a saint in the city”: Springsteen, ethics, and social justice’. The thread that runs through almost all of his work and all of these essays is the focus on the connection between people, between humanity. The Ties that Bind, if you will. Edward U. Murphy's ‘The country we carry in our hearts is waiting’ tackles one of the central questions of the study of popular music. Namely, can popular music directly cause social change? Murphy seems slightly more optimistic than this reviewer about that but that does not invalidate what is a very persuasive and important essay.

Essentially, this collection is an important work as it both raises the stock and validity of one of the greatest musical icons of the current time and contends with some of the central and key questions of the academic study of popular music in general, the power of music to affect change in society and to strengthen the connection and bonds between people across racial and gender boundaries. I also found the collection of essays to flow very well. Various strands reoccurred throughout and some of Springsteen's albums were brought up regularly too, Devils & Dust, The Rising, Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad all took up more than their fair share of space in this book. Interestingly, these albums are far from his best sellers, raising the question of what qualifies as ‘popular’ and what justifies the academic study of such. Overall, a fascinating book for fans of the Boss, academics and students of Popular Music alike.