This book explores the sense of possibility opened by destabilizing military conflicts, social upheavals and technological advances of the time.

The author shows how the multiplicity of musical styles questioned ideas traditionally assumed around compositional practice, the boundaries between music and noise, or the relationship between composer, performer and spectator. It also shows how composers and their works have played an important role in defining the ideas of nation, race and gender, as well as configuring the modern world, for better and for worse.

A new vision of the music of our time, which highlights the very important role played in its development by political conflicts, technological advances and by the society itself in which the works have emerged.