Radicalism and Music: An Introduction to the Music Cultures of al-Qa'ida, Racist Skinheads, Christian-Affiliated Radicals, and Eco-Animal Rights Militants by Jonathan Pieslak (review)

Abstract

Weiss asserts that “this lack of engagement to some extent, at least, was rooted in various degrees of open or hidden ‘white chauvinism,’ if not racial attitudes among Western European Communists” and that Comintern attempts to recruit black people “had entered a cul-de-sac, if not backfired, by the end of 1929” (192). Yet little is said about the history of these “metropolitan parties,” so the reader is left wondering why there was such resistance among Communists to this work. Similarly, while Weiss seems to agree with several recent scholars that the value of the Comintern’s work among black radicals was less the gains it brought to the Communist movement and more that it helped cohere a “black international” of activists, the lack a broader examination of black radicalism makes it hard to evaluate this view. Finally, as a former copyeditor, this reviewer feels compelled to note that there are numerous proofreading and copyediting errors (e.g., the American Negro Labor Congress is repeatedly abbreviated as “ANCL”). While one could, perhaps, excuse a lack of editing in an underground Communist newspaper, it is a different matter for a book of such heft and price. None of these criticisms should obscure the value of this book. Research libraries will need to get this book. Historians and students researching Communist work among people of African descent, or the Comintern more broadly, will need to read it.