“Successfully demonstrates how we can build theory from the ground up by being attentive to context and observing music in action. . .Though largely featuring essays originally published in different venues, the book proves remarkably cohesive, with several argumentative threads reoccurring throughout.”

Journal of Radio and Audio Media

“Taylor’s work is mature, commanding, ambitious, and desperately needed. He is one of very few ethnomusicologists who have put capitalism at the center of their critical questions, historicizing different forms of free enterprise culture that have shaped music production, consumption, and dissemination over the last hundred years. By naming things that have previously been treated amorphously by music scholars, Taylor brings into sharp focus the core dynamics of global music industries. Music in the World offers a trenchant theoretical framework. For Taylor, theory never plays out on an abstract or ahistorical plane.”

Deborah Wong, University of California, Riverside

“Music in the World is a critical reference for engaging dynamics of contemporary musical globalization. But it is considerably more: a deep exploration of the value of meaning and the meaning of value in music under capitalism.”

Steven Feld, School for Advanced Research