The Clash Takes on the World

On their debut, The Clash famously claimed to be "bored with the USA," but The Clash wasn't a parochial record. Mick Jones' licks on songs such as "Hate and War" were heavily influenced by classic American rock and roll, and the cover of Junior Murvin's reggae hit "Police and Thieves" showed that the band's musical influences were already wide-ranging. Later albums such as Sandinista! and Combat Rock saw them experimenting with a huge range of musical genres, lyrical themes and visual aesthetics.
The Clash Takes on the World explores the transnational aspects of The Clash's music, lyrics and politics, and it does so from a truly transnational perspective. It brings together literary scholars, historians, media theorists, musicologists, social activists and geographers from Europe and the US, and applies a range of critical approaches to The Clash's work in order to tackle a number of key questions: How should we interpret their negotiations with reggae music and culture? How did The Clash respond to the specific socio-political issues of their time, such as the economic recession, the Reagan-Thatcher era and burgeoning neoliberalism, and international conflicts in Nicaragua and the Falkland Islands? How did they reconcile their anti-capitalist stance with their own success and status as a global commodity? And how did their avowedly inclusive, multicultural stance, reflected in their musical diversity, square with the experience of watching the band in performance? The Clash Takes on the World is essential reading for scholars, students and general readers interested in a band whose popularity endures.

Samuel Cohen is Associate Professor of English at the University of Missouri, Columbia, USA.
James Peacock is Senior Lecturer in English and American Literatures at Keele University, UK.

Foreword by Don Letts
1. Introduction: The Transnational Clash
Samuel Cohen (University of Missouri, USA) and James Peacock (Keele University, UK)
2. An Analysis of The Clash in Concert: 1977-1982
Peter Smith (University of Sunderland, UK)
3. Politics, Pastiche, Parody, and Polemics: The DIY Educational Inspiration of The Clash
Andy Zieleniec (Keele University, UK)
4. Turning Rebellion into Money: The Roots of The Clash
Isaac Vayo (University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, USA)
5. The Clash Sell Out: Negotiating Space in the Ideological Superstructure
Nathalie Prévot and Graham Sinclair
6. The Clash: Sociological Imagination and Critical Philosophy
Diana Cedeno
7. Righteous Minstrels: The Clash, Race, and the Rock Writer
Jack Hamilton (University of Virginia, USA)
8. Washington Bullets: The Clash and Vietnam
Samuel Cohen (University of Missouri, USA)
9. Spouting Slogans for the Sandinistas? The Clash and International Solidarity
Jeremy Tranmer (University of Lorraine, France)
10. Punk Politics, Blackness, and Indigenous Protest: The Clash's Australian Tour, 1982
Gabriel Solis (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagn, USA)
11. From a Long Way Away: New York and London in The Clash's "Red Angel Dragnet"
James Peacock (Keele University, UK)
12. The Last Gang in Town: The Clash Portrayed in New York and Paris
Justin Wadlow (Université de Picardie Jules Verne, France)
13. Mick Went Disco and Joe Sang Campfire Songs: Punk Afterparties and the Politics of Forking Paths
Michael J. Salvo (Purdue University, USA)
14. Conclusion: The Only Band that Matters
Samuel Cohen (University of Missouri, USA) and James Peacock (Keele University, UK)