In The Country Music Reader Travis D. Stimeling provides an anthology of primary source readings from newspapers, magazines, and fan ephemera encompassing the history of country music from circa 1900 to the present. Presenting conversations that have shaped historical understandings of country music, it brings the voices of country artists and songwriters, music industry insiders, critics, and fans together in a vibrant conversation about a widely loved yet seldom studied genre of American popular music. Situating each source chronologically within its specific musical or cultural context, Stimeling traces the history of country music from the fiddle contests and ballad collections of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the most recent developments in contemporary country music. Drawing from a vast array of sources including popular magazines, fan newsletters, trade publications, and artist biographies, The Country Music Reader offers firsthand insight into the changing role of country music within both the music industry and American musical culture, and presents a rich resource for university students, popular music scholars, and country music fans alike.

Steeped in story-telling and endlessly curious, Reading the Country: An Introduction to Nomadology (1984) was the product of Paddy Roe, Stephen Muecke and Krim Benterrak, experimenting with what it might be like to think together about country. In the process a senior traditional owner, a cultural theorist and a painter produced a text unlike any other. Reading the Country: 30 Years On is a celebration of one of the great twentieth-century books of intercultural dialogue. Recalling a spirit of intellectual risk and respect, in this collection, Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars, poets, writers and publishers both acknowledge the past and look, with hope, to future transformations of culture and country.