This book tells the story of Germany between the years 1914–1945 through the history of its sounds and noises. From the killing grounds of the Great War, passing through the roaring optimism of the 1920s, and up to the horrifying spectacle of the Nazis and the dreadful apocalypse of the Second World War, sound became the epitaph of an era that was mostly dominated by war and a global sense of crisis. Yaron Jean reconstructs and analyses these moments when sound and its meaning became history, and places them in a single study that provides a unique perspective on the history of modern Germany in one of its most turbulent centuries.

Yaron Jean teaches history at Oranim Academic College of Education and Sapir Academic College, Israel. His research focuses on the relations between technology and human experience in twentieth-century Europe. He also researches the socio-technological legacy of Germany in non-European history.