David Suisman is professor of history at the University of Delaware. His book Instrument of War: Music and the Making of America’s Soldiers (University of Chicago Press, 2024), received the ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor-Virgil Thompson Book Prize. His other books include Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music (Harvard University Press, 2009), recipient of numerous awards and honors; Capitalism and the Senses (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023); and Sound in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010). He lives in Philadelphia.
David Suisman
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Writing on Public Books
American Music, American War
In World War II, G.I.s waking up in a combat zone in Italy were reported to have belted out “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin,” a blockbuster smash of 1943.
