Reinhard Strohm studied musicology, violin, Latin, and Romance languages in Munich, Pisa, Milan and Berlin, and obtained his PhD in 1971 at the TU Berlin. In 1970-1982 he collaborated on a critical edition of the works of Richard Wagner. He taught at King's College London, UK, in 1975-1983 and 1990-1996, was Professor of Musicology at Yale University, USA, in 1983-1990, and Heather Professor of Music at Oxford University, UK, in 1996-2007. Visiting professorships were held at Chicago, Rome, Vienna, Budapest, Zurich, and Hamburg. Awards include the Dent Medal (RMA) in 1977 and the Balzan Prize (for Musicology) in 2012. Strohm's research focuses on European music ca.1400-ca.1800, the history of opera, historiography, and postmodern criticism of musicology.

Introduction; 1 Notes and queries on 'global music history', Martin Stokes; Enlightenment; 2 Ancient Greeks, world music, and early modern constructions of Western European identity, David R. M. Irving; 3 Analytical encounters: global music criticism and enlightenment ethnomusicology, Estelle Joubert; 4 Musical thought in the global enlightenments, Philip V. Bohlman; East Asia; 5 Voice and song in early encounters between Latins, Mongols, and Persians, ca.1250-ca.1350, Jason Stoessel; 6 'The transformation of the world': Silk Road musics, cross-cultural approaches, and contemporary metaphors, Max Peter Baumann; 7 Music education in modern Japanese society, Rinko Fujita;8 The (musical) imaginarium of Konishi Yasuharu, or how to make Western music Japanese, Oliver Seibt; 9 'European music' outside Europe? Musical entangling and intercrossing in the case of Korea's modern history, Jin-Ah Kim; 10 Korean music: definitions and practices, Keith Howard; 11 East Asia in a global historical perspective - approaches and challenges, Nicola Spakowski; South and South-East Asia; 12 Heavy metal bamboo: how archaic bamboo instruments became modern in Bandung, Indonesia, Henry Spiller; 13 Cultural autonomy and the 'Indian Exception': debating the aesthetics of Indian classical music in early 20th-century Calcutta, Matthew Pritchard; 14 Orientalism and beyond: Tagore, Foulds, and cross-cultural exchanges between Indian and Western musicians, Suddhaseel Sen; America; 15 Why did Indians sing? The appropriation of European musical practices by South-American natives in the Jesuit reducciones, Leonardo J. Waisman; 16 The global mission in the music of Jesuit drama, Tomasz Je¿; 17 From 'abandoned huts' to 'maps of the pampas': the topos of the Huella and the representation of landscape in Argentine art music, Melanie Plesch; 18 'Minor Mode and the Andes': the pentatonic scale as topic and the musical representation of Peru, Julio Mendívil; 19 'The rending call of the poor and forsaken street crier': the political and expressive dimension of a topic in Silvestre Revueltas's early works, Roberto Kolb-Neuhaus; 20 Passion and disappointment: waltz and danza topics in a Venezuelan musical nationalism masterpiece, Juan Francisco Sans; 21 Festivals, violins and global music histories: examples from the Caribbean and Canada, Tina K. Ramnarine