Book excerpt: This volume illuminates musical connections between Britain and the continent of Europe, and Britain and its Empire. The seldom-recognized vitality of musical theatre and other kinds of spectacle in Britain itself, and also the flourishing concert life of the period, indicates a means of defining tradition and identity within nineteenth-century British musical culture. The objective of the volume has been to add significantly to the growing literature on these topics. It benefits not only from new archival research, but also from fresh musicological approaches and interdisciplinary methods that recognize the integral role of music within a wider culture, including religious, political and social life. The essays are by scholars from the USA, Britain, and Europe, covering a wide range of experience. Topics range from the reception of Bach, Mozart, and Liszt in England, a musical response to Shakespeare, Italian opera in Dublin, exoticism, gender, black musical identities, British musicians in Canada, and uses of music in various theatrical genres and state ceremony, and in articulating the politics of the Union and Empire.