Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest
Available from Bloomsbury
"Vuletic goes beneath the bubblegum to reveal surprising machinations." Foreign Affairs
"As a scholarly study in international cooperation and competition, this book is exemplary." Times Higher Education
"Dean Vuletic’s rich history of the Eurovision Song Contest is very important reading indeed." German Studies Review
"A significant and valuable contribution to understanding the interplay of popular music, media and cultural policy in post-World War II Europe." Popular Music
"Never has the history of Eurovision been placed in its international context as in this truly inventive new book." EuropeNow
Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest examines from a political perspective how Eurovision has reflected and become intertwined with the history of postwar Europe. The book is the first-ever scholarly study on the history of Eurovision and the product of a research project conducted under the most prestigious European research award, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship funded by the European Commission.
Established in 1956, Eurovision is one of Europe’s most popular television programmes and greatest popular cultural phenomena. The contest is often mocked as cultural kitsch. Yet, there are no cultural media that have connected Europeans more than popular music and television, and the development of these has always been tied to cultural, economic, political, social and technological changes.
All of this makes Eurovision an ideal tool to explain the history of postwar Europe, from the political divisions of the Cold War to the current challenges of European integration. This book does so by drawing on original sources, including hitherto unpublished archival documents from international broadcasting organisations and the author’s analyses of every edition of and entry in Eurovision.
