Friendly City Books celebrates the publication of COLD WAR COUNTRY, an exciting history of country music by Mississippi State University assistant professor of history Joseph Thompson. Join us April 2nd at 6:00 p.m. for a reading and country music trivia at Munson & Brothers Trading Post in Columbus.

photo courtesy: Grace Cockrell

About the Author

Joseph M. Thompson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Mississippi State University, specializing in the U.S. South and 20th Century U.S. history. His teaching portfolio covers a broad spectrum, including Agricultural, Rural, and Environmental History, as well as courses on War, Power, International Affairs, and Identity with a focus on Gender, Race, and Region. Thompson holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in United States History from the University of Virginia, alongside an M.A. in Southern Studies from the University of Mississippi. His academic excellence is recognized through prestigious accolades such as the Smithsonian Institution Fellowship at the National Museum of American History and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. In 2019, he was selected to join the “Southern Summit,” a gathering of emerging scholars at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Thompson is an active member of the Organization of American Historians, American Studies Association, American Historical Association, and Southern Historical Association, contributing significantly to the field.

About the Book

Cold War Country: How Nashville’s Music Row and the Pentagon Created the Sound of American Patriotism

Inside the all-American relationship between country music and the US military

Country music maintains a special, decades-long relationship to American military life, but these ties didn't just happen. This readable history reveals how country music's Nashville-based business leaders on Music Row created partnerships with the Pentagon to sell their audiences on military service while selling the music to servicemembers. Beginning in the 1950s, the military flooded armed forces airwaves with the music, hosted tour dates at bases around the world, and drew on artists from Johnny Cash to Lee Greenwood to support recruitment programs. Over the last half of the twentieth century, the close connections between the Defense Department and Music Row gave an economic boost to the white-dominated sounds of country while marginalizing Black artists and fueling divisions over the meaning of patriotism.

This story is filled with familiar stars like Roy Acuff, Elvis Presley, and George Strait, as well as lesser-known figures: industry executives who worked the halls of Congress, country artists who dissented from the stereotypically patriotic trappings of the genre, and more. Joseph M. Thompson argues convincingly that the relationship between Music Row and the Pentagon helped shape not only the evolution of popular music but also race relations, partisanship, and images of the United States abroad.