Bob Dylan In America Book

A brilliantly written and groundbreaking book about Dylan's music – now the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2016 – and its musical, political and cultural roots in early 20th-century AmericaGrowing up in Greenwich Village in the 1960s Sean Wilentz discovered the music of Bob Dylan as a young teenager. Almost half a century later, now a distinguished professor of American history, he revisits Dylan's work with the critical skills of a scholar and the passion of a fan. Drawing partly on his work as the current historian-in-residence on Dylan's official website, Sean Wilentz provides a unique blend of biography, memoir and analysis in a book which, much like its subject, shifts gears and changes shape as the occasion demands.

Beginning with Bob Dylan's explosion onto the scene in 1961 this book charts his career and the evolution of his astonishing output and places it firmly within a musical and cultural context. It examines the influence of the Popular Front ideology and of Beat aesthetics as well as the debt and sometimes surprising connections to other composers.