Assistant Professor of History Celeste Day Moore has published her first book, Soundscapes of Liberation: African American Music in Postwar France (Duke University Press, 2021), which is included in the Refiguring American Music series.
The book builds on archival research and oral history interviews conducted in France, Senegal, and the United States, to examine the popularization of African American music in postwar France and the Francophone world, where it signaled new forms of power and protest. By showing how the popularity of African American music was intertwined with contemporary structures of racism and imperialism, Moore demonstrates this music's centrality to postwar France and the convergence of decolonization, the expanding globalized economy, the Cold War, and worldwide liberation movements.
In a review, Penny M. Von Eschen, author of Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War, wrote “Celeste Day Moore takes us on a dazzling and deeply researched tour through the soundscapes and multisensory experiences of the Francophone Black world.”
“This fascinating and detailed book made me think anew about things I thought I knew well,” wrote Daniel Widener, author of Black Arts West: Culture and Struggle in Postwar Los Angeles. And, Pierre Crépon, of The Wire, said “Although this history's outlines can feel familiar, it is approached in a fresh way."
