Stauffer, John & Benjamin Soskis. The Battle Hymn of the Republic: A Biography of the Song that Marches On. Oxford Univ.Jun. 2013.416p.

摘要

More than the story of the song that we all know and can sing (at least the first verse of) on cue, this title by Stauffer (English, African and African American studies, Harvard) and Soskis (Ctr. for the Study of Nonprofit Management, Philanthropy & Policy, George Mason Univ.) relates every tangent of the history of the tune itself. In its many iterations (such as black spirituals and "John Brown's Body") the tune existed long before Julia Ward Howe penned her famous lines during the Civil War. The book is chronologically dense with descriptions of political and labor wranglings that demonstrate how the tune, whether with the words to "Battle Hymn of the Republic" or some other verse, has been co-opted by causes from abolition to Teddy Roosevelt's Progressive Party to the Wobblies with "Solidarity Forever." Martin Luther King often used the first stanza of the "Battle Hymn" in his speeches. VERDICT Florence Howe Hall wrote about her mother's version of this hymn almost 100 years ago; many cultural studies of abolitionism include it. This may be the first comprehensive look at the history of the tune and titular verse, but the academic presentation will be heavy going for all but some scholars.