The World's Din: Listening to Records, Radio and Films in New Zealand, 1880-1940

摘要

Some monographs that develop from doctoral dissertations can feel, well, disserta-tion-y. Peter Hoar's excellent The World's Din is indeed as meticulously researched as any really good Ph.D., but crucially it is also engagingly written and leads the reader on an insightful and infectiously enthusiastic journey through a fascinating period of cultural history in New Zealand. At stake here are the complex inter-relationships between national identity and colonialism, technology and society, and the value of music and the spoken word in live performance, broadcast, and recorded forms.