Pablo Palomino's book The Invention of Latin American Music aims to trace the development and embrace of the notion of Latin American music as it is commonly used today, whether in academic circles, among listening audiences, in the realm of cultural policy and diplomacy, or with artists and performers themselves. The author argues that the concept, which began to take shape and exert its influence in the 1930s, did not emerge out of a cohesive and concerted regionalist project. Instead, it is the result of a process of layering of competing ideas regarding Latin America as a geographical entity, which intersect with modernist and nationalist desires for cultural distinctiveness and with more pragmatic concerns regarding the creation, protection, and expansion of networks and markets centered on different forms of musical production (live performances, radio broadcasts, recorded sound, music education programs, academic research, etc.). As a result, Palomino defines Latin American...
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