Having previously edited the collection Italian Music during the Fascist Period 2004), Illiano (general secretary of the Centro Studi Opera omnia Luigi Boccherini), now joined editorially by
Sala (president of same), turns the reader's attention to the same general topic but with a wider geographical scope. Twenty-two articles explore music as a political phenomenon under
totalitarian dictatorships in ten European countries (France, Greece, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Spain, and Hungary) and five Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil,
Chile, Cuba, and Mexico). Historical and aesthetical articles focus on individual composers as well as generations of composers. One of the articles is 160 pages long and focuses on the Jewish
Fascist composer and music critic Renzo Massarani, who participated in Mussolini's March on Rome, but ran afoul of the racial laws and was forced to emigrate to Brazil. He receives so much
attention because new materials have become available and because the discussion of Massarani illuminates many other general topics involving the politics of music under dictatorship.
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