THEODORE LEVIN

MUSIC, ASIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES FAVORITE BOOK TO TEACH Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, by Jack Weatherford MUST-READ BOOK IN YOUR FIELD The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, by David W.Anthony FAVORITE PLEASURE READ The Songlines, by Bruce Chatwin MOST RECENTLY READ On China, by Henry Kissinger Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, by Oliver Sacks "Students in my interdisciplinary course on the Silk Road have found Weatherford illuminating, even revelatory, in his revisionist view of Genghis and the abiding impact of Mongol civilization on the West." "The history of music in Central Eurasia, where I've been doingfieldwork for the last 35 years, is intimately tied to language, material culture and spiritual culture. Anthony's book is a summary of interdisciplinarity-as relevant for a music ethnographer as for a linguist, archaeologist or art historian." "As a lifelong traveler and sometime travelogue writer, I continue to draw inspiration from Chatwin." "I don't care for Kissinger's politics, but he's a lively and lucid writer and a keen observer of the Chinese political elite."