A transporting voyage of archaeological discovery: Sound Tracks unearths instruments from
around the world and across time releasing the past's musical secrets for the first time.
**SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH ACADEMY BOOK PRIZE 2025** 'A thrilling journey into the sonic
richness of human experience' PHILIP BALL author of The Music Instinct 'A magical book'
FRANCIS PRYOR author of Britain BC From the present day back to the dawn of time from dark
caves and murky swamps to open deserts and ocean depths here is the history of humankind's
relationship with music in fifty detective stories. We see a child's delight in Peru in AD 700
playing with a water-filled pot that chirps like a bird we shiver with a lonely soldier
sending trumpet signals to the next watchtower on Hadrian's Wall we sway to the stately
rhythms of the 64 bells buried in a tomb in China in the 5th century BC. And on this grand tour
we learn that music is part of what makes us human - a way of commemorating our pasts
communicating with others and shaping our lives. Brimming with astonishing insights Sound
Tracks provides an enthralling alternative history of humanity in which the silences of the
past are filled with a glorious treasure hoard of vanished sounds and voices. 'Piles
revelation upon revelation to shed a completely new perspective on the tools we use for making
music' NORMAN LEBRECHT author of Why Beethoven 'Lawson has brilliantly conjured up the
sounds of 30 000 years of human history' DAVID ABULAFIA Professor Emeritus of Mediterranean
History
