“Meticulously researched and engagingly written, The Search for Medieval Music in Germany and Africa, 1891–1961 eschews glib appeals to globalism for focused accounts of three topics: European medieval music and its supposed parallels with non-Western (specifically African) music; antimodernist ideologies and a longing for participatory music; and the need to save the souls of contemporary others living far away. Reflecting the respective concerns of comparative musicologists, youth movements, and missionaries to East Africa, these three inquiries turn out to be mutually reinforcing, sometimes in surprising ways. Busse Berger’s labors in various archives, her nuanced and judicious readings, and her consistent focus on human agency even while acknowledging the shaping forces of various institutions make this a timely, original, and inspiring book.”

Kofi Agawu, The Graduate Center, City University of New York

“The Search for Medieval Music in Africa and Germany, 1891–1961 presents a largely unknown or underrated history of African-European interactions in music. Brilliantly researched and full of surprising new data from the history of African missions, it is a unique, necessary, and exhilarating contribution. Busse Berger has collected an immense amount of original scholarly material and presents it with stunning directness and immediacy. This book is a mind-blowing experience for anyone interested in global musical history.”

Reinhard Strohm, University of Oxford

“The Search for Medieval Music in Africa and Germany, 1891–1961 explores connections between musical scholarship and music making in Germany. The book is engagingly written and will stimulate readers to further reflection on motivations and uses of musical scholarship. Busse Berger offers an original and valuable approach to research on the intellectual and social history of musicology as well as an important contribution to the history of German missions in East Africa.”

Stephen Blum, The Graduate Center, City University of New York

"One can see how the book describes people, thoughts and positions in the Germany of the first half of the twentieth century (including its colony in East Africa) in a stirring way and thus leads into the middle of the ramified discussions about the foundations of musicology. Anyone interested in the subject will read the book with profit."

Die Musikforschung

"Busse Berger sheds light on the long overlooked transnational contexts and the role of of global music in early musicology and shapes a new conception of musicological research in a crucial part of the 20th century.”

Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft and Religionswissenchaft

"A wide-ranging work that uncovers layers of reciprocal influence between comparative musicology, early music historiography, the culture of the Jugendmusik- und Singbewegung, and German missionaries in Africa."

H-Net Reviews

"There is much to learn from Busse Berger’s authoritative musical expertise and extensive archival research. Global historians, Europeanists, and Africanists will learn about a largely forgotten chapter of twentieth-century history in this imaginatively conceived work."

Central European History

"Berger crafts a rich, nuanced analysis of a foundational moment in the making of modern musical thought... The author’s scrupulous account of events, based on the painstaking review of an enormous body of archival material, makes for a dizzyingly complex history. Her book charts multiple paths, and heightening its drama are the circumstances of colonial occupation in which events unfold."

Music and Letters