The above poem, from which Rachel Clare Donaldson takes the title of her book, deserves to be quoted in full, because it completely establishes the sense and theme of the book – that American folk music is tied to the American people.

‘They sang of heroes, outlaws, murders, fools. … Above all, they seemed to be frank, straightforward, honest.’ Pete Seeger, writing on his early experience of American folk music, provides the starting point for Rachel Clare Donaldson's exploration of national identity through music and also highlights the themes referenced by Whitman (p. 1). Seeger's argument that folk music is a way for Americans to understand each other, and to unite and make real the giant ‘national community’ is also Donaldson's argument in this historical overview of the American folk revival (p. 1).

Setting out to explore what it means to be American by looking at the country's music, Donaldson shows the symbiotic relationship between music and politics from roughly the 1930s to the 1960s. Chronological in approach, the major social and political events of mid-20th-century America are laid out alongside the revival and resurgence of interest in folk music.

The book's strength lies in its demonstration of the extra-musical aspects of the folk music revival. Music is, in fact, notably absent from most of the text. Instead Donaldson focuses on the people, genres, movements and themes within the broader American folk spectrum.

Chapter 1, ‘Hearing the People’, is the book's strongest chapter. This lays the groundwork for both the folk revival movement and the remainder of Donaldson's study. She introduces the main characters of Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and John and Alan Lomax, and explains how their interests and activities intersected with New Deal policies and programmes. The competing strains of Americanism become evident through the early folk festivals, with some focusing only on music descended from the British tradition, whereas others focus on Eastern European traditions. As with almost every aspect of American culture, the inclusion or exclusion of African or African American traditions is always noteworthy. Competing definitions of what it means to be American emerge, and the cliché of the great melting pot is readily apparent. Interestingly, the folk in American folk music are exclusively seen to be working class, as in the Whitman and Seeger passages referenced above. President Franklin Roosevelt and his wife were fans of the music, and through a combination of their early support of festivals, and the working-class nature of the musicians and other fans, the movement became entwined with leftist politics and the Communist Party. The early movement may have been a way to help Americans come to terms with the Great Depression and provide a national culture and national music that may not have existed earlier.

In general, Donaldson avoids a discussion of the music and the lyrics in favour of discussing the role and function of the movement and the characters involved. What emerges is a sense of the American folk revival's political, rather than artistic, significance. For a movement that overtly appeared to be inclusive, the picture that Donaldson presents is that the actuality was much more complex and varied. Her argument that the work of revivalists, not the music itself, aspired to create the identity that the revivalists wanted, is perhaps difficult to accept but bears further investigation. I should also note that this is a compelling and interesting read, offering great insight into the different roles of how music worked to shape American political identity.