Selected as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2005 by Choice Magazine
“Broyles ambitiously strides across two-and-a-half centuries of American music, tracking the myth of the ‘rebel’ or ‘maverick.’ A massive think-piece, this book fuses historical narrative with cultural criticism—simultaneously wise, reflective, and provocative.”—Carol J. Oja, Harvard University, author of Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920s
“A study like this, which covers so broad a territory and centers on such an appealing theme, will be of interest not only to scholars of music, history, and culture, but a broad public as well. This will be one of the most significant books ever published about American music or American culture in general."—J. Peter Burkholder, President, American Musicological Society, OR author of Charles Ives: The Ideas Behind the Music and All Made of Tunes: Charles Ives and the Uses of Musical Borrowing
“Americans value our mavericks, and we need them. This splendid, far-reaching, long-overdue book fills in the musical side of the maverick tradition. In the process, it provides a social history of the U.S. through the prism of music--and does it in lucid and lively prose.”—Jan Swafford, composer and author of Charles Ives: A Life with Music
"Mavericks and Other Traditions in American Music is tremendously impressive—a book that will become one of the important reference works on my shelf."—Kyle Gann, author of American Music in the Twentieth Century, Associate Professor, Bard College