Bang, Rattle, Pop
Journal: Journal of Musicology
Year: 2025

The South African War of 1899–1902 has been traditionally framed as one of Britain’s final colonial wars and a last gasp of nineteenth-century military conventions. In this article, I argue that—far from being the last “gentlemen’s war”—the South African War can be seen as a newly modern form of warfare that is mediated and modulated through sound. I draw on archival research and earwitness accounts from both combatants and observers to reconstruct aspects of historical sense perception that dem